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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





































Books by Victor E. Harlow 

The Nations and Other Poems 
Jesus the Man 

Bibliography and Genetic Study oe American Realism 
Oklahoma, A History 
Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Jesus’ 

Jerusalem 

Expedition 




Jesus’ Jerusalem 
Expedition 



HARLOW PUBLISHING CORPORATION 
Oklahoma City 
1936 


"BT ^ 0 


Copyright 193G by 
Harlow Publishing Corporation 



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©CiA 101477 

DEG 28 1936 


CONTENTS 

Introduction . vii 

I Who Accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem... 1 

II The Story in the Gospees.-. 9 

III ’07rtcrco IJLOV .-.-. 20 

IV 'Zvarpefopevoov be avroiv ev rfj TdXiXala . 38 

V “And They That Foeeowed Were Afraid". 56 

VI Jesus, Rome and the Pharisees.-. 66 

VII ’AXX’ ov 8e 'Hp&drjs .-.... 25 

VIII "Erepoi KaicovpyoL bvu. .—.-.^ 

Bibeiography .H3 

Index to New Testament References.-.I 15 


















Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 










Introduction 

The story of Jesus of Nazareth is essentially the chronicle 
of a Messianic episode. It is a story of events that could not 
possibly have occurred under circumstances or in environment 
other than of that time and place, an environment which was 
dominated and completely saturated with the Messianic hope of 
his people. The announcement of John the Baptist, repeated by 
Jesus himself, that “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” was 
a Messianic proclamation. The people who made up his follow¬ 
ers and who surrounded him during his closing hours, whose 
faith persisted and provided the motive power in the formation 
of the eKK\r](Tia which followed him, were dominated by the 
Messianic expectation. 1 He was recognized by his immediate 
followers as the Messiah, 2 he permitted them to continue this 
attitude toward him with his approval, and finally in that critical 
hour when his life hung in the balance, in the presence of all 
the authorities of his nation, he confidently proclaimed himself 
to be the Messiah. 3 The charge against him before the Roman 
procurator was essentially that he claimed to be the Messianic 
king of the Jews, a charge which the ironic superscription on 
his cross repeated as the reason for his death. Those who re¬ 
mained his devoted followers, even in the face of his rejection 
by the authorities of his people and his execution at their behest 
by the representative of the great Empire against whom the 
Messianic hope was directed, did so in the conviction that he 
was the Messiah and that he would return in his own person 
and perform the Messianic functions. 

*Luke 19:11, 38; Mark 11:9-10; Luke 24:21; Matt. 21:8, 9; Matt. 20:20- 
23; Luke 18:35-39. 

2 Matt. 16:13-16; Mark 8:27-29; Luke 9:18-20. 

*Matt. 26:63-64; Mark 14:61-62; Matt. 27:11; Mark 15:2-3; Luke 23:3. 

( V ii) 



Introduction 


viii 


Concerning the characteristics of that Jewish Messianic hope 
of which the brief career of Jesus was the flower, recent investi¬ 
gations have developed an enormous mass of information. It 
is now definitely known that it was protean in its form, through 
the centuries varying in many 'respects with the time and the 
group and even the individual who held it. Prophet and scribe 
and Rabbi each made his contribution to the details with which 
this intense racial desire from time to time clothed itself. But at 
bottom all these myriad forms had certain essential character¬ 
istics out of which the others grew. 

Chief among these essential characteristics was the expecta¬ 
tion that the Anointed One was to be a man of power, one 
through whom the strength of the Cord should be revealed. 
Usually he was thought of as a Man of War, as one who should 
lead the hosts of Israel and, through the aid of the Most High, 
overthrow his enemies and restore the Kingdom of Israel to its 
former proud estate. But whether through military means or 
otherwise, all expected that he would become the head of the 
nation, and would be able to replace the hated authority of the 
over-lords—who from time to time oppressed the Jews in the 
closing days of their history—with the divine authority that 
should be exercised through him 4 

This characteristic was sharply apparent in the numerous 
outbreaks of Messianic enthusiasm which occurred from Judas 
the Galilean to Bar Kochba. In every instance except that of 
Jesus of Nazareth, these Messianic outbreaks centered about a 
popular leader around whom was organized a greater or smaller 
body of enthusiasts who looked upon him as in some form the 
embodiment of the Messianic expectation. In every instance 
there was an appeal to arms, in every instance the relation be- 

4 See Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, 29:4-5, 8 (Translation 
Clark’s Theological Library, II, ii, p. 166-167, 170-173) ; Klausner, Jesus of 
Nazareth, p. 200; with sources there assembled. 



Introduction 


ix 


tween the leader and the followers was military. In Jesus alone, 
according to the current interpretation, the expected Messianic 
leader appeared purely as a prophet, as a preacher of ethics and 
religion, manifesting none of the expected elements of popular 
leadership, making no attempt to perform the functions which 
were the most essential characteristics of the popular hope. 

However easy it may be for the seeker for purely religious 
values in the story of Jesus to accept this view, it is certainly 
not easy for one who searches for a correct historical perspec¬ 
tive. It is not necessarily contradictory that one who was solely 
a prophet should also have thought of himself as being especially 
anointed of God. But that any considerable number of Jews 
of that time and place could have imputed Messiahship to any 
one completely devoid of those characteristics which were the 
most essential in the very conception is contradictory to an ex¬ 
treme degree. 

Neither is it necessary for one who reads the record closely 
to retain this view. The story as told in the gospels discloses 
with marked clearness the fact that Jesus did assume, in at least 
some degree, those characteristics of the Messiah essential in the 
current expectation. It is reasonably clear that he did assemble 
a great number of followers, and that his relation to them was 
recognized to be that of a leadership closely approximating mili¬ 
tary authority; that he led this multitude to Jerusalem and at 
their head entered the City in Messianic manner; that in Jeru¬ 
salem itself he attempted to exercise supreme authority, and was 
for a day actually in physical control of the Temple from which 
he had displaced the usual authorities, and that he clearly claimed 
to be the King of the Jews; and that he was convicted and put 
to death as an insurrectionist, a false claimant of authority. 

These facts stand out clearly in the Gospels themselves. The 
earliest Christians, including the Twelve, who were personally 


X 


Introduction 


associated with Jesus, were Jews, well aware of all these facts, 
which to them were entirely normal and called for no explana¬ 
tion. The men who produced the synoptic gospels, though two 
of them were Greeks, had with individuals who had personally 
participated in these experiences contact sufficiently close that they 
maintained a correct general outlook upon them, though even 
to them these purely historical matters had begun to be subor¬ 
dinated in importance to the more ideal values which had been 
attached to the personality of Jesus. But only a few generations, 
with their rapidly developed sublimation of the whole episode 
through the medium of the Pauline and gnostic philos¬ 
ophies, were sufficient to subordinate the historical to the spir¬ 
itual, to such an extent that the whole episode took on a differ¬ 
ent appearance. Some of the facts of the record became not only 
useless, but actually incomprehensible to generations of Chris¬ 
tians who were not Jews, who no longer had any community of 
understanding with the Messianists of the time of Jesus and who 
found neither inspiration nor spiritual instruction in that story 
of high attempt and glorious failure. 

Out of this misunderstanding, in the period during and fol¬ 
lowing the great persecution of Diocletian, in which the sacred 
books were destroyed throughout the Empire, when these books 
were being reproduced under extreme difficulty, grew changes in 
the text of the New Testament which have perpetuated the de¬ 
fective comprehension of that period. When manuscripts were 
being produced under the most intense difficulties, with few and 
scattered exemplars, when dependable norms were lacking, when 
the memory of the bishops learned in the scriptures was almost 
as authoritative as the text actually being copied, passages which 
had been looked upon as insignificant and for that reason were 
largely overlooked, when placed under the enforced scrutiny of 
manuscript reproduction revealed their contradictions with the 


Introduction 


xi 


conception of the story that had come to be classic among the 
Christians. What was more natural than that the men who were 
attempting to reproduce these scriptures, would from time to 
time so revise these difficult and contradictory passages that they 
would conform with their conceptions? 

That this has occurred in numerous places is beyond doubt. 
The Greek text as revised by Lucian, containing many such re¬ 
visions, was the dominant text at the time of the beginning of 
the translation of the Greek scriptures into the modern languages. 
As a consequence the gospels have fixed themselves in the minds 
of the Christian world, learned and unlearned alike, with these 
modified texts imbedded in them. The textual investigations of 
the past century have uncovered many of these revisions and 
have, to a great degree, restored the Greek text as it existed prior 
to this period of revision, but the changes in the current English 
text growing out of these discoveries have rarely acquired a 
place in the historical consciousness of even those who study 
the gospels most closely. As a consequence, the historical out¬ 
look upon the life of Jesus which prevailed, not at the time when 
the gospels were written, but at the time of the Lucianic revi¬ 
sion, has continued with us until now. 

The succeeding chapters are made up of discussions of sev¬ 
eral of these modified passages and the effect upon the current 
conception of the story of Jesus compelled by the revision of 
the language. In particular they are an exposition of the con¬ 
viction that in one respect at least, Jesus functioned in Messianic 
fashion, to-wit: That he did assemble a band of followers not 
insignificant in number, but large enough to constitute a political 
phenomenon of the first magnitude, led it down to Jerusalem 
and took control of the Temple. They are dominated by the con¬ 
viction that Jesus is to be understood historically, not merely 
through his teaching, nor by what he suffered at the hands of 


Xll 


Introduction 


others, but also by what he actually did himself; that he was 
not merely a great teacher, a source of profound religious revela¬ 
tion, but was also himself a man of action, who functioned no¬ 
tably in a troubled and violent time . 5 


5 Robert Eisler in his The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist has de¬ 
veloped an idea basically similar, but quite different in its detailed application. 
His thesis is that Jesus led a multitude to Jerusalem with intent to take it into 
the wilderness to await the time when the Kingdom should appear, but that he 
was brought into conflict with the Roman governor, and thus met disaster. 



Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 

i 

Who Accompanied Jesus to Jerusaeem? 

Students of the life of Jesus are agreed as to the critical 
importance of the event at Caesarea Philippi usually described 
as the Confession of Peter. This event marks a point of sharp 
contrast between the spirit and purpose of the events and teach¬ 
ing before it and those which followed it. Here again students 
for the most part agree as to the significance of the two periods. 
According to the view generally accepted, before the Confession 
the work of Jesus consisted in the evangelization of the multi¬ 
tudes who came to hear him and in the selection of the Twelve, 
who were to found his church. After that time, his activity was 
confined to the training of this same Twelve, followed by his 
practical suicide for the sake of the human race. 

Thus, the story from Caesarea Philippi on, throughout the 
centuries has been dominated by one idea of his intention and 
method. This idea has been that immediately following the Con¬ 
fession of Peter, Jesus determined to' establish a church com¬ 
posed of those who should be saved by his voluntary sacrifice, 
and that this purpose controlled his actions from then on. With 
this intent he went to Jerusalem to die and be raised again, and 
took with him the Twelve in order to train them to carry on 
his work in the establishment of his church after his death. 

From time to time there have been different ideas as to the 
various phases of this general purpose but there have been few 
exceptions to the understanding that he took with him only the 
Twelve, and that they accompanied him for the purpose of train- 

( 1 ) 


2 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


ing for their future work . 1 Here and there a commentator in 
recent years, influenced by some of the manifest necessities of 
the recovered gospel texts, has recognized the presence of an in¬ 
distinct group of slightly connected followers, but practically 
speaking the statement that he was actually accompanied by only 
the Twelve is universal. This statement has not fully satisfied all 
the conditions of the historic problem and, consequently, has 
been accompanied by several other varying auxiliary explana¬ 
tions. In particular, the frequent references to “the multitude ’' 2 
which occur in the story of this trip as told by all three of the 
synoptic gospels, has usually been explained by stating that Jesus 
and the Twelve fell in with crowds of Passover pilgrims going 
down to Jerusalem and that these Passover crowds constituted 
the multitude referred to. The crowds who accompanied him on 
what has generally been called “the triumphal entry” are con¬ 
strued to be these same crowds of pilgrims; though the reasons 

^ee, for example, Eoisy, L’Bvangile selon Luc, p. 292, where discussing 
the mission of the Seventy, he says “il serait par trop inconcevable que Jesus 
lancot une mission plus considerable que celle des Douze.” “It would be quite 
inconceivable that Jesus sent out a mission more considerable than that of 
the Twelve.” Of the idea of “une petite armee de disciples,” he says “ce ne 
laisse pas d’etre invraisembable.” “This is quite unbelievable.” Turner, The 
Study of the New Testament, page 62: “the whole story of the ascent to 
Jerusalem and the arrival there seems to imply that it was only the few 
disciples whom he was educating in closest intimacy who now made up his 
company.” So most authors who have commented upon it. Keim ( Jesus of 
Nazar a, Ransom’s Translation, V, pp. 2, 3) like Eoisy, thinks the Seventy 
and the one hundred and twenty who formed the first Christian Community 
(Acts 1:15) mythical, but does find a small number of men and women es¬ 
sential in the narrative. Eusebius, I, xii, does not question the Seventy, but 
apparently considers that number adequate to account for all the others men¬ 
tioned. 

a Wrede, ( Das Messiasgeheimnis, 138, 139) finds the oxXos so trouble¬ 
some that he prefers to consider it merely a mannerism of Mark: “Von der 
Menge gilt bei Markus nur ganz dasselbe wie von Hause und ahnlichen 
Vorstellungen: er hat sie jederzeit zur Hand, wo er sie braucht. Und sie ist 
stet nicht weit, sobald er an die Jiinger denkt.” “Of the multitude in Mark 
holds true only quite the same as of ‘house’ and similar notions: he has it 
always ready at hand, where he needs it. And it is always not far away, so 
soon as he thinks of the disciples.” Exegesis is easy if we are to solve pur 
difficulties by the elimination of any factor which becomes troublesome. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


3 


why such unattached crowds of unbelievers joined in the Mes¬ 
sianic procession with which he entered the city have never been 
made entirely satisfactory. Similarly the seventy messengers 
mentioned by Luke 3 are not compatible with the idea that only 
the Twelve were accompanying Jesus, for it is impossible to 
withdraw seventy from twelve; consequently those puzzled by 
this contradictory situation have attempted to explain the second 
sending of messengers as an erroneous “double” of the first send¬ 
ing of the Twelve during the earlier stages of the ministry in 
Galilee. 4 The impossibility of explaining the Cleansing of the 
Temple upon any natural basis, if it is supposed that Jesus and 
the Twelve constituted the only available force for that purpose, 
has led to various explanations as to how this feat was accom¬ 
plished, but all of them are miraculous in some respect, as only 
a miracle could account for the immediate submission of the 
great mass of unbelieving business men and temple officers to 
the orders of a lone individual, supported only by twelve un¬ 
armed Galilean peasants. The statement that Jesus, during the 
remainder of that day following the expulsion of the merchants 
and bankers, would not permit anyone so much as to carry a 
vessel through the Temple, 5 although the priests and Temple offi¬ 
cers were all unbelievers and antagonistic to him, remains inex¬ 
plicable if Jesus and the Twelve were the only force supporting 
such a command. Only the miraculous intervention of divine 
power could possibly have made effective the policing of the vast 

3 Luke x, 1. This corresponds with the number of the Sanhedrin, seventy 
members and the presiding officer. Schiirer, The Jewish People in the Time 
of Christ, II, 1, 175, 176. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin I, Mishna I: 
“Whence do we deduce that the Great Council must be of seventy-one? From 
Num. xi, 16: ‘Gather unto me seventy men.’ And add Moses, who was the 
head of them—hence seventy-one.” It is not improbable that Jesus was begin¬ 
ning the organization of the new Sanhedrin for the coming Kingdom, just as 
he was planning the new judges for the restored twelve tribes (Matt. 19:27-28) 

4 E. g. Loisy L’Evangile selon Luc, p. 292, commenting on Luke x, 1. 

5 Mark 11:16. 



4 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Temple area, to any such extent, by one man with only twelve 
followers. 6 And the presence of the women, who, we are told in 
Luke 23 :55, Matthew 20:20, had accompanied him from Galilee, 
is overlooked, as well as Cleopas and that other one mentioned 
by Luke in 24:13-35, and that number who had accompanied him 
from the beginning, from whom were selected Joseph and 
Matthias as recorded in Acts 1:21-23. 

Also, with the modern discoveries of various ancient manu¬ 
scripts and their consequent effect upon the text of the New 
Testament, further discrepancies have appeared which were not 
apparent so long as the story was read in the King James ver¬ 
sion, or in the Textus Receptus upon which it was based. A con¬ 
ception which was already full of contradiction, since the ap¬ 
pearance of the critical Greek texts of Tischendorf and West- 
cott and Hort and the Revised Version of the English Bible, es¬ 
pecially the American Revised Version of the New Testament, 
has become absolutely untenable by one who reads the story care¬ 
fully with the assumption that it contains a reasonably accurate 
record of an actual historical incident, and with the further as¬ 
sumption that a miracle must be assumed at no point where a 
rational explanation is available. 

This requires a restatement and a new solution of the prob¬ 
lem of the purpose of Jesus in going from Caesarea Philippi to 
Jerusalem and of the events of that trip. A book published in 
1924 by the author of this series of essays 7 contains an attempt 
at such a re-statement. Briefly it may be summarized as follows: 

Jesus’ conviction of his messiahship, originated at his bap¬ 
tism at the fords of the Jordan and, carried through his Galilean 

6 Cf. to the same effect Bacon, The Story of Jesus, p. 232: “A revolu¬ 
tionary defiance of the Sanhedrin such as this could not have been carried 
out without the support of a great multitude of Galilean adherents of the 
prophet.” And Burkitt, Jesus Christ, p. 45: “The Cleansing of the Temple 
surely implies an enthusiastic body of adherents.” 

7 Harlow, Victor E., Jesus the Man. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


5 


ministry, but somewhat disturbed by his compulsory flight from 
Galilee to avoid arrest by Herod, was confirmed anew by the 
recognition of that messiahship by Peter and the undoubted ad¬ 
herence of the remainder of the Twelve to that announcement. 
With this confirmed conviction, he determined openly to assume 
the responsibility attached to it, to abandon his wanderings in 
foreign lands and to return to the capital of Judaism, the only 
place where his messiahship could be fulfilled according to the 
prophecies, there to give his nation an opportunity to recognize 
him as the Anointed One of God and, consequently, as the na¬ 
tion's head. He recognized the hazard involved in presenting 
this assumption in a city where a national government almost 
certain to be hostile to such an attempt was already in operation, 
and foresaw the probability of personal disaster and a fulfillment 
of the prophecies concerning the suffering Messiah, but he felt 
assured that in such event he would be able to fulfill the prophe¬ 
cies of the resurrection and would return upon the clouds of 
Heaven, as was required by the current conception of the Mes¬ 
sianic coming. In addition there were numerous prophecies con¬ 
cerning the circumstances surrounding the coming of the Messiah 
which must necessarily be fulfilled before the old age could end 
and the new age be ushered in, and which could be fulfilled only 
at Jerusalem. These he must fulfill in order that the will of God 
be done and the Kingdom of God appear upon the earth, and 
for this reason he must at any cost to himself go to Jerusalem. 

There were features of this conception which could not be 
fulfilled by him alone, but which required the co-operation and 
presence of numbers of believers. His purpose could be realized 
only in his recognition as the head of the nation, which required 
that he be accepted by great numbers of followers. Consequent¬ 
ly, his first move in this direction was to invite all those who 
would, to abandon their affairs, to cease their reliance upon the 


6 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


world status that was about tO' pass away, and to accompany him 
to Jerusalem, there to see the new age come in and to participate 
in it. To only the Twelve did he reveal the conviction of his 
own Messiahship, but the invitation was extended to all his hear¬ 
ers. The growing expedition passed secretly through Galilee and 
on down the valley of the Jordan, gathering adherents as it went. 
Thirty-five 3 pairs of messengers were sent out beforehand, giv¬ 
ing out the message that he was coming, announcing the ap¬ 
proaching Kingdom and his purpose; followers came to him and 
by the time he had reached Jericho they had become an immense 
crowd of many thousands of people. Any attempt to shake the 
determination of Jesus, either by his own now deeply fearful as¬ 
sociates, or by those Pharisees who desired to prevent its fulfill¬ 
ment, was of no avail, and despite the developing fears and ap¬ 
prehensions of his followers, Jesus led his multitude up the moun¬ 
tainous road to Bethany. There: he organized an entry into Jeru¬ 
salem, which was planned to be a fulfillment of the messianic 
prophecy; and he entered the city at the head of a crowd filled 
with enthusiasm over the approaching fulfillment of their hopes, 
in numbers so great that, though unarmed, it aroused the appre¬ 
hensions of Jerusalem, accustomed even as that city was to great 
crowds at Passover times. 

Supported by this multitude of followers, which was prac¬ 
tically unorganized but was attached to him personally and op¬ 
erating under his direction, he was able the next day to compel 
the persons engaged in business within the Temple enclosure to 
remove their property and abandon the Temple, and at the same 
time he was able to overawe the temple authorities and to take 
complete physical possession of the Temple; thus he assumed the 
position of the head of the nation, in accordance with his belief 
in his own destiny as the Messiah. But when he returned to the 
Temple the next day he was confronted by the national authori- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


7 


ties reorganized to such an extent as to prevent the repetition 
of his physical control of the Temple, and demanding his au¬ 
thority for such superb actions. Though no longer able to main¬ 
tain the position he had taken on the previous day, supported by 
his multitude he was still able to avoid the open desire of the 
Jewish government for his arrest, and to leave the Temple in 
safety after having delivered to the authorities who had resisted 
him a rebuke and a terrific excoriation, which aroused in them 
the greatest anger and the firmest determination to destroy him. 

His failure to repeat his triumph and the now evident im¬ 
possibility of securing the adherence of the entire nation, as he 
and they had expected, probably emphasized by his failure to re¬ 
pudiate the Roman tribute when confronted with an inquiry re¬ 
garding it, caused his, followers to disorganize and scatter, and 
after two days of retirement, which was practical concealment, 
he was betrayed by one of his own disappointed followers and 
arrested by agents of the Jewish authorities. At an informal 
hearing held at night in the home of the high priest, he was pro¬ 
voked into a statement which constituted blasphemy under the 
Jewish law, and at a meeting of the Sanhedrin early the next 
morning he was adjudged guilty of death under the same law. 
But since under the Roman government the Jewish government 
had no authority to enforce a sentence of death, and since under 
the Roman law the offense of which he had been convicted by 
the Sanhedrin was not a crime, in order to secure his execu¬ 
tion the national leaders were sent to present him to the Roman 
government and to make complaint that he was a disturber of 
the peace and claimant of a power which was treasonable to¬ 
wards the Romans. He was acquitted of these charges by Pilate, 
but that governor, nevertheless, when he learned that Jesus was 
a Galilean, and that the offense with which he was charged had 
been committed partially or entirely within Galilee, sent him to 


8 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. Herod found him guilty 
and returned him to Pilate as a person worthy of extreme pun¬ 
ishment; Herod did not inflict this punishment probably because 
Herod himself was outside of his jurisdiction and the right to 
inflict punishment in Jerusalem belonged only to the Roman gov¬ 
ernment. Pilate, though influenced by the finding of Herod, was 
still convinced of the practical innocence of Jesus, and sought 
to release him, with a minor punishment as a concession to Her¬ 
od’s judgment; but meeting the antagonism of the entire Jerusa¬ 
lem population, both the rulers and the rabble, he permitted the 
enforcement of the sentence of Jesus’ own ruler, and the Galilean 
was crucified as a disturber of the peace from Galilee unto Je¬ 
rusalem and one claiming to be King of the Jews. 

The book in which this conception was set out was written 
for popular perusal and does little more than mention a few of the 
special problems involved in a change of outlook so revolution¬ 
ary. The implications of this idea, however, are of vast impor¬ 
tance in the study of the life of Jesus. Since students interested 
in those implications, once their attention is engaged by this idea, 
will scarcely be ready to abandon the old for the new unless such 
abandonment is intellectually compulsory, the succeeding chap¬ 
ters of this book are given to some critical and historical con¬ 
siderations which, in the judgment of the writer, render it in¬ 
tellectually impossible to hold the classic view, and necessary to 
adhere to an explanation basically of the type set out above. 


II 

The: Story in the: Gospels 

While interest in the story of Jesus ever since the founda¬ 
tion of the church has been very great, with the exception of the 
record of the crucifixion and the resurrection throughout the 
centuries the actual historical side of it has been given a place 
secondary to his teachings. When once his followers had been 
convinced of the reality of his resurrection and of the consequent 
finality of the demonstration that he was Messiah and Savior, 
(which was demonstrated to them primarily by the resurrection) 
the practical instinct led believers to look into their records of 
his acts and sayings for his own words as a source of the correct 
way of life and as a forecast of the future, rather than for a 
record of the material incidents of his life. To people who be¬ 
lieved, as all early Christians did, that Jesus’ return and the 
change of the age were events of the immediate future, the only 
rational interest was in a proper preparation for that event, and 
history for its own sake was of no importance whatever to them. 
As a consequence, the historical references, the narrative material 
of the gospels, was imbedded in scattered fashion among a much 
larger amount of didactic material, and attracted very slight 
attention compared with those other sections which looked pri¬ 
marily to the future. 

This condition makes it desirable at the beginning of this 
examination to assemble those historical sections of the gospels 
upon which this story of his movement upon Jerusalem is based. 
Such assembly, which eliminates from the record of that sec¬ 
tion of his history merely those parts which have chiefly didactic 
value, gives effect by juxtaposition to those passages which in 
their scattered situation have been overlooked and are readily 
passed over as not significant. 

( 9 ) 


10 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


If it be objected that this method of assembling material 
could lend itself to great abuse, the objection will readily be ad¬ 
mitted. It must be borne in mind, however, that in this instance 
the omitted sections are not at all contradictory of the story here 
suggested, and that this arrangement is merely an assemblage of 
passages, the significance of which is usually overlooked in the 
discussion of the question. The order of their assembly is, with 
slight exception, that of the gospels themselves, taking Mark as 
the basis. There is no insertion of new material. They are mere¬ 
ly passages which, assembled in this manner, with the conceal¬ 
ing didactic passages removed, violate none of the requirements 
of the record and make an historical, intelligible story with the 
need for the miraculous eliminated. Succeeding chapters will 
discuss some of the important passages contained in it. 

The passages are quoted from the American Revised Ver¬ 
sion, with an occasional slight change which seems to conform 
more precisely to the Greek. The revisers held the classic view 
of the meaning of the trip, and their translation naturally and 
unconsciously was colored in many places by their basic ideas. 

Matthew 16:13-20—Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea 
Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Who do men say that the Son of 
Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; some Elijah; and 
others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He saith unto them, “But who say 
ye that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and saith unto him, “Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say unto thee, that thou 
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades 
shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom 
of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then 
charged he the disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ. 

Matthew 16:21—From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples 
how he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and 
chief priests and scribes and be killed, and the third day be raised up. 

Mark 8:32-9:1—And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But he 
turning about and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter and saith “Get thee 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


11 


behind me, Satan: for thou mindest 1 not the things of God, but the things 
of men.” And he called unto him the multitude with his disciples, and said 
unto them all (Luke 9:23) “If any man would come after me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever shall seek to 
save his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and 
the gospel’s shall save it. For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole 
world, and forfeit his life? For what should a man give in exchange for 
his life? 2 For whosoever shall be ashamed 3 of me and my words in this 
adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man also shall be ashamed of 
him when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And 
he said unto them “Verily I say unto you, there be some here of them 
that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom 
of God come with power.” 

Mark 9 :30—And they went forth from thence, and passed through Gal¬ 
ilee ; and he would not that any man should know it. 

Matthew 17:22-23—And while they were gathering themselves together 
in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man shall be delivered up into 
the hands of men; and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be 
raised up. 

Mark 9:32-33—But they understood not the saying, and they were 
afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum. 

Luke 9:51-56—And it came to pass, when the days were well-nigh come 
that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, 
and sent messengers before his face; and they went and entered into a vil¬ 
lage of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive 
him, because his face was as though he was going to Jerusalem. And when 
his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord wilt thou that we 
bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and 
rebuked them; and they went to another village. 

Luke 10:1—Now after these things the Lord appointed seventy others 
and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither 
he himself was about to come. 

Luke 9:57-59—And as they went in the way, a certain man said unto 
him, “I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” And Jesus said unto 
him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the 
Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” And he said to another, “Follow 
me.” But he said, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my Father.” But 
he said unto him 

Matthew 8 :22—“Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” 

Luke 9:61, 62—And another also said, “I will follow thee, Lord; but 

'Qpoveh, Thou hast in thy mind, thou art thinking about. 

2 AvTa\\ayiJLCL rrjs tvxys, as an equal value of his life.—Wellhausen, Das 
Evangelium Marci: “Was kann der mensch als Equivalent fur seine seele 
bekommen!” 

3, Ett aurxw&v pe, withhold himself from me on account of shame, similar¬ 
ly, the Son of Man shall in shame withhold himself from him. 



12 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house.” But Jesus said 
unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is 
fit for the kingdom of God.” 

Matthew 19:1-2—And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these 
words (the discourse of Matthew 18) he departed from Galilee and came into 
the borders of Judea beyond Jordan; and great multitudes followed him. 

Luke 12:1—In the meantime, when the many thousands of the multitude 
were gathered together, insomuch that they trod upon one another, he began 
to say to his disciples first of all “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” 

Luke 12:4-5—“And I say unto you, my friends, be not afraid of them 
which kill the body, and have no more that they can do. But I warn you 
whom ye shall fear: fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast 
into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him.” 

Luke 12:32—“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure 
to give you the kingdom. 

Luke 12 :49-52—“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it 
is already kindled ? But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I 
straightened till it be accomplished. Think ye that I am come to give peace 
in the earth ? I tell you nay; but rather division. 

Luke 13:22-34—And he went on his way through cities and villages, 
teaching and journeying on to Jerusalem. And one said unto him, “Lord, are 
they few that are saved?” And he said unto them, “Strive to enter in by the 
narrow door: for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not 
be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the 
door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, 
open to us’; and he shall answer and say to you, ‘I know you not whence ye 
are’; then shall ye begin to say, ‘We did eat and drink in thy presence, and 
thou didst teach in our streets’; and he shall say, ‘I tell you, I know not whence 
ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.’ There shall be the weep¬ 
ing and the gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, Jacob, 
and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth with¬ 
out. And they shall come from the east and the west, and from the north 
and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are 
last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last.” In that very 
hour came certain Pharisees, saying to him, “Get thee out, and go hence; for 
Herod would fain kill thee.” And he said unto them, “Go and say to that 
fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and 
and the day following: for it can not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusa¬ 
lem.’ ” 

Luke 14:25-33—Now there went with him great multitudes: and he 
turned, and said unto them, “If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his 
own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, 
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever does not bear his 
own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, de¬ 
siring to build a tower, doth not sit down and count the cost, whether he have 
wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and 
is not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him, saying, This man began 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


13 


to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter 
another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is 
able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty 
thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an 
ambassage, and asketh conditions of peace. So therefore whosoever he be 
of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” 

Mark 10:17-25—And as he was going'forth into the way, there ran one 
to him and kneeled to him, and asked him, “Good Master, what shall I do that 
I may inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said unto him, “Why callest thou me 
good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the commandments, 
Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal. Do not bear false witness, 
Do not defraud, Honor thy father and mother.” And he said unto him, 
“Teacher, all these things have I observed from my youth.” And Jesus looking 
upon him loved him, and said unto him, “One thing thou lackest: go, sell 
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven: and come, follow me.” But his countenance fell at the saying, and 
he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great possessions. And 
Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, “How hardly shall 
they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.” And the disciples were 
amazed at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, “Chil¬ 
dren, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom 
of God! It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich 
man to enter into the kingdom of God.” 

Matthew 19:25-29—And when the disciples heard it, they were aston¬ 
ished exceedingly, saying, “Who then can be saved?” and Jesus looking upon 
them said to them, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are 
possible.” Then answered Peter, and said unto him, “Lo, we have left all, 
and followed thee: what then shall we have?” And Jesus said unto them 
“Verily, I say unto you, that ye who have followed me, in the regeneration 
when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit 
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that 
hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or 
lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal 
life.” 

Mark 10:32-44—And they were on the way going up to Jerusalem; and 
Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed 
were afraid. And he took again the Twelve 4 and began to tell them the things 
that were to happen unto him, saying, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and 
the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes; and 
they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles; and 
they shall mock him and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall 
kill him; and after three days he shall rise again.” And there came near 
unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee, saying unto him, “Teacher, we 
would that thou shouldst do for us whatsoever we shall ask of thee,” and he 

4 Matt. 20:17, “he took the Twelve apart.” Apart from whom? Obviously, 
from the others in the company, whose close presence prevented privacy. 



14 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

said unto them, “What would ye that I should do for you?” And they said 
unto him, “Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand and one on 
thy left hand, in thy glory.” But Jesus said unto them, “Ye know not what 
ye ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with 
the baptism that I am baptised with ?” And they said unto him, We are able. 
And Jesus said unto them, “The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the 
baptism that I am baptised withal shall ye be baptised; but to sit on my right 
hand or on my left hand is not mine to give; but it is for them for whom it 
hath been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved 
with indignation concerning James and John. And Jesus called them to him, 
and said unto them, “Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the 
Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them. 
But it is not so among you; but whosoever would become great among you, 
shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you, shall be ser¬ 
vant of all.” 

Luke 19:1-9—And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And 
behold, a man called by name Zacchaeus; and he was a chief publican, and 
he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the 
crowd, because he was little by stature. And he ran on before, and climbed 
up into a sycamore tree to see him; for he was to pass that way. And when 
Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and said unto him, “Zacchaeus, make 
haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.” And he made 
haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they 
all murmured, saying, “He is gone to lodge with a man that is a sinner.” And 
Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods 
I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I 
restore fourfold.” And Jesus said unto him, “Today is salvation come to 
this house, for as much as he also is a son of Abraham.” 

Luke 19:11-28—And as they heard these things, he added and spake a 
parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom 
of God was immediately to appear. He said therefore, “A certain nobleman 
went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and tc> return. And 
he called ten servants of his, and gave them ten pounds and said unto them, 
‘Trade ye herewith till I come.’ But his citizens hated him, and sent an 
ambassage after him saying, ‘We will not that this man reign over us.’ And 
it came to pass, when he was come back again, having received the kingdom, 
that he commanded these servants, unto whom he had given the money, to be 
called to him, that he might know what they had gained by trading. And the 
first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, thy pound has made ten pounds more.’ 
And he said unto him, ‘Well done, thou good servant; because thoujwast found 
faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.’ And the second 
came, saying, ‘Thy pound, Lord, hath made five pounds.’ And he said unto 
him also, ‘Be thou also over five cities.’ And another came, sa>s«ig, ‘Lord, 
behold, here is thy pound, which I kept laid up in a napkin; for I feared thee, 
because thou art an austere man; thou takest up that which thou l,ayedest not 
down, and reapest that which thou didst not sow.’ He saith unto him, ‘Out 
of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


15 


that I am an austere man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping 
that which I did not sow; then wherefore gavest thou not my money into the 
bank, and I at my coming should have required it with interest?’ And he said 
unto them that stood by, ‘Take away from him the pound, and give it unto him 
that hath the ten pounds.’ And they said unto him, ‘Lord, he hath ten pounds.’ 
I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him 
that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. But 
these mine enemies, that would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, 
and slay* them before me.” And when he had thus spoken, he went on before, 
going up to Jerusalem. 

Mark 11:1-10—And when they draw nigh unto Jerusalem unto Beth- 
phage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth two of his disciples 
and saith unto them, “Go your way into the village that is over against you; 
and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon no man 
ever yet sat; loose him, and bring him. And if any one say unto you, ‘Why 
do you this?’ say ye, ‘The Lord hath need of him,’ and straightway he will 
send him back thither.” And they went away, and found a colt tied at the 
door without in the open street; and they loose him. And certain of them that 
stood there said unto them, “What do you, loosing the colt?” And they said 
unto them even as Jesus had said; and they let them go. And they bring the 
colt unto Jesus, and cast on him their garments; and he sat upon him. And 
many spread their garments upon the way; and others branches, which they 
had cut from the fields. And they that went before and they that followed! - 
cried, “Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Blessed 
is the kingdom that cometh, the kingdom of our Father David; Hosanna in 
the highest.” 

Mark 11:11—And he entered into Jerusalem, into the temple, and when 
he had looked round about upon all things, it being now eventide, he went out 
unto Bethany with the Twelve. 

Mark 11:12—And on the morrow—they were come out from Bethany— 
15-16. And they came to Jerusalem; and he entered into the temple, and 
began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the temple, and 
overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold 
the doves; and he would not suffer that any man should carry a vessel through 
the temple. 

Matthew 21:14-17—And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; 
and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the won¬ 
derful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and 
saying, “Hosanna to the son of David”; they were moved with indignation, 
and said unto him, “Hearest thou what these are saying?” And Jesus said 
unto them, “Yea: did ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and suck¬ 
lings thou hast perfected praise?” 

Mark 11:17-18—And he taught, and said unto them, “Is it not writ¬ 
ten, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? 


*Slaughter, kill off. 

fLuke 19:37: The whole multitude of the disciples. 



16 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


But ye have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes 
heard it and sought how they might destroy him. 

Luke 19-48—x\nd they could not find what they might do; for the people 
all hung upon him, listening. 

Mark 11:19—And whenever evening came, he went forth out of the city. 
27. And they come again to Jerusalem; and as he was walking in the temple, 
there come to him the chief priests and the scribes and the Elders; and they 
said unto him, “By what authority doest thou these things ? Or who gave thee 
authority to do these things?” 

Mark ll*:29-33—And Jesus said unto them, “I will ask of you one ques¬ 
tion, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men? answer me.” And 
they reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we shall say from Heaven; he will 
say, Why then did ye not believe him? But should we say, From men—” 
they feared the people: for all verily held John to be a prophet. And they 
answered Jesus and say, “We know not.” And Jesus saith unto them, “Neither 
tell I you by what authority I do these things.” 

Matthew 21:28-22 :22—“But what think ye? A man had two sons; ana 
he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And 
he answered and said, ‘I will notbut afterward he repented himself, and 
went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and 
said, ‘I go sir:’ and went not. Which of the two did the will of his father?” 

They say, “The first.” Jesus saith unto them, “Verily I say unto you, that 

the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For 
John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; 
but the publicans and the harlots believed him; and ye, when ye saw it, 
did not even repent yourselves afterward that ye might believe him. 

“Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder, who 
planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a wine-press in it, 

and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another 

country. And when the season of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants 
to the husbandmen, to receive his fruits. And the husbandmen took his 
servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he 
sent other servants more than the first; and they did unto them in like 
manner. But afterward he sent unto them his son, saying, “They will reverence 
my son.” But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves, 
This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance. And they 
took him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. When 
therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do unto those 
husbandmen?” They say unto him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable 
men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render 
him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus saith unto them, “Did ye never read 
in the scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, The same was 
made the head of the corner; This was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in 
our eyes?’ Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shkll be taken 
away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


17 


thereof. And he that falleth on this stone shall be broken in pieces; but 
on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.” 

And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they 
perceived that he spake of them. And when they sought to lay hold of him, 
they feared the multitudes, because they took him for a prophet. 

(( And Jesus answered and spake again in parables unto them, saving, 
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, who made a mar¬ 
riage feast for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were 
bidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come. Again he sent 
forth other servants, saying, ‘Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have 
made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things 
are ready: come to the marriage feast/ But they made light of it, and went 
their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise; and the rest 
laid hold on his servants, and treated them shamefully, and killed them. But 

the king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, 

and burned their city. Then saith he to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, 
but they that were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore unto the partings 
of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast/ 
And those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all 
as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was filled with 

guests. But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a 

man who had not on a wedding-garment: and he saith unto him, ‘Friend, 
how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment?’ And he was 
speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, 
and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and 
the gnashing of teeth/ For many are called, but few chosen.” 

Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might ensnare 
him in his talk. And they send to him their disciples, with the Herodians, 
saying, “Teacher, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God 
in truth, and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the persons of 
men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute 
unto Caesar, or not?” But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said “Why 
make ye trial of me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money.” And they 
brought unto him a denarius. And he saith unto them, “Whose is the image 
and superscription?” They say unto him, “Caesar’s.” Then saith he unto 
them, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto 
God the things that are God’s.” And when they heard it, they marvelled, 
and left him, and went away. 

Luke 20 :26 —And they were not able to take hold of the saying before 
the people: and they marvelled at his answer and held their peace. 

Mark 12:28-37—And one of the scribes came, and heard them question¬ 
ing together, and knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, 
“What commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered “The first is, Hear, 
O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength. The second is this: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” And 


18 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


the scribe said unto him, “Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast well said that he 
is one; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart, 
and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his 
neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacri- 
fices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto 
him, “Thou are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no man after that 
durst ask him any question. 

And Jesus answered and said, as he taught in the Temple, “How say 
the scribes that the Christ is the son of David? David himself said in the 
Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, 
Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet.’ David himself calleth 
him Lord; and whence is he his Son?” And the common people heard him 
gladly. 

Matt. 23 :1 -7—Then Jesus spake to the multitudes and to his disciples, 
saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all things therefore 
whatsoever they bid you, these do and oberve: but do not ye after. their 
works; for they say and do not. Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous 
to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not 
move them with their finger. But all their works they do to be seen of 
men; for they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of 
their garments and love the chief place at feasts and the chief seats in the 
synagogues.” 

13_36—“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because 
ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye enter not in yourselves, 
neither suffer ye them that are entering to enter. Woe unto you, scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; 
and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than 
yourselves. Woe unto you ye blind guides, that say, ‘Whosoever shall swear 
by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever shall swear by the gold of the 
temple, he is a debtor.’ Ye fools and blind: for which is greater, the gold 
or the temple that hath sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whosoever shall swear 
by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon 
it, he is a debtor.’ Ye blind: for which is greater, the gift or the altar that 
sanctified the gift? He therefore that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by 
it, and by all things thereon. And he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth 
by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that sweareth by the heaven, 
sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sittith thereon. Woe unto 
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, 
and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy 
and faith; but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other 
undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel! 
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside 
of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and 
excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the 
platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto the whited sepulchres, 
which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


19 


and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto 
men but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, 
and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days 
of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood 
of the prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourslves, that ye are sons of 
them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 
Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of 
hell ?” 

Luke 19:41-44—And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept 
over it, saying, “If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which 
belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall 
come unto thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and 
compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to 
the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. 

Matthew 23:37-39—“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, 
and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered 
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say 
unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord.” 

The multitude of his followers disappears at this point, not 
to reappear during his lifetime. 


Ill 

’O 7 rt<7w jiov 

The great crisis in the career of Jesus was that hour at 
Caesarea Philippi, when he sought and found in the statement 
of Simon Peter confirmation of his conviction that he was the 
Messiah. Not until then, so far as the record tells us, had he 
definitely contemplated going into Jerusalem. All his message 
up to that point assumed that the Kingdom was about to come, 
through the operation of the divine plans alone and without par¬ 
ticipation or interference by the interposition of any special ac¬ 
tivities upon his own part. Until then he was the annunciator 
of the coming Kingdom, the preacher to his own people, warn¬ 
ing them what they should do to be saved, teaching the way of 
life which would lead to safety, asking only for repentance and 
a purified heart and a righteousness which should exceed the 
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees as a preparation for 
the Kingdom when it should arrive. But its actual coming, so 
far as his preaching reveals, was in no way dependent upon any¬ 
thing that he must do. His attitude was purely eschatological, 
to use the modern term. 

Immediately after the recognition of his Messiahship by 
Simon a great change appeared. He began to announce that 
certain things were necessary for him to do; that he must go 
into Jerusalem and that there he should suffer certain things at 
the hands of the authorities. An attempt upon the part of Simon 
to deny this necessity brought a biting rebuke, and a demand 
that Simon “line up.” And immediately afterwards we find Jesus 
making a general public invitation to follow him, to participate 
in the new enterprise upon which he was about to embark. 

This invitation, one of the most striking, and perhaps one 

( 20 ) 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


21 


of the most generally misunderstood of his pronouncements, 1 
is given by Mark, as translated in the Revised Version, as fol¬ 
lows (8:34-9:1). 

“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life 
shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
gospel s shall save it. For what doth it profit a man, to gain the 
whole world, and forfeit his life? For what should a man give in 
exchange for his life? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of 
my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man 
also shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory of his 
Father with the holy angels.” 

It should be observed that this invitation is extended not 
only to the Twelve. Matthew’s language would possibly so have 
limited it, saying, (16:24) 

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples.” 

Mark, however, (8:34) says that 

“He called unto him the multitude with his disciples and said 
unto them” 

while Luke (9:23) puts it, 

“And he said unto all.” 

Evidently immediately following the colloquy with Peter he 
made a public appeal in one of the villages near Caesarea Phil¬ 
ippi, in which the language above quoted was addressed not only 
to the Twelve, but to all who were present. 2 The hearers included 
the Twelve, and a large number of other people. 

The Greek of the first verse of this passage is as follows: 

el tls ftekei bmaco pov eX#euq aTrapvrj(rcLcr$a) eavTov mi aparco 
tov (TTavpov avrov Kal aKoXov&eiTOi poi. 


a Wrede finds the situation and the language so contradictory that he 
calls the whole incident a fiction. (Das Messiasgeheimnis, 138-139). 

2 Easton, The Gospel according to St. Luke, p. 140, refuses to admit the 
multitude, ignoring Mark, saying “ ‘AH’ is very vague, for all the disciples 
were addressed in v. 22, and no one else was present.” He gives no reason 
for the dogmatic certainty of his last clause. 



22 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

This was translated in the authorized version, in practically 
the same language as given above which is 

“Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take 
up his cross and follow me.” 

Wyckliffe is very similar: 

“If ony man wole come aftir me alon denye he himself and take 
his cross and sue he me.” 

Tyndale however uses a slightly different form which is 
important. He puts it: 

“Whosoever will follow me, let him forsake hymsilf and take 
vp his cross, and folowe me.” 

Cranmer and the Geneva Bible are identical with Tyndale 
while the Rheims version substitutes for the 
“Whosoever” 

of this form, 

“If any man.” 

The most modern translation, Moffatt’s, is 

“If any one wishes to follow me, let him deny himself, take up 
his cross, and so follow me.” 

The importance of these rather inconspicuous variations lies 
in the different shades of meaning which have aided in obscur¬ 
ing the nature of this invitation. The meaning universally at¬ 
tributed to it is that Jesus was talking in general, in a manner 
applicable to all Christians in all times, of the requirements of 
discipleship. But the Greek itself is more readily interpretable 
as a direct invitation to those of his hearers who were willing 
to participate in the undertaking upon which he was entering, 
to accompany him on the trip to Jerusalem which he had just 
announced that he must accomplish. 

A discussion of the purpose of such accompaniment is not 
necessary at this time; the problem under consideration is wheth¬ 
er or not language somewhat as follows would more exactly 
transmit the idea contained in the Greek: 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


23 


“Whosoever desires to follow me (in this enterprise) let 
him cease to consider his personal safety and come follow me. 
For whosoever prefers to save his life is going to lose it; but 
whosoever shall lose his life on account of me and of the an¬ 
nouncement of the kingdom shall Save it. For what shall it profit 
a man to gain the whole world and waste his lifef or what shall 
a man give as an equivalent of his lifet For whosoever shall 
refuse to acknowledge me and my words in this adulterous and 
sinful generation, the Son of Man shall also refuse to recognize 
him when he shall come in the glory of his father with the holy 
angels. Verily I say unto you that there are some here of those 
who stand by who shall not taste of death until they shall see 
the kingdom of God come in power.” 

It will be observed that one clause of verse 34 has been 
omitted: 

“And let him take up his cross.” 

This language almost certainly was not in the actual words 
of Jesus. This was a figure of speech which had no meaning 
until after the event of the cross made it significant. It is mere¬ 
ly a natural and unconscious insertion by Mark of an expression 
which was common among Christians at the time the gospel was 
written, an expression that was as significant to them as it would 
have been meaningless in the mouth of Jesus. Neither its use 
nor its omission, however, affects the validity of the succeeding 
discussion. 

The expression ekdeiv oirlao) nov has no parallel in classic 
Greek. V^iaco is used only as an adverb until we meet it in the 
Septuagint, where it is abundantly used as a preposition with 
a genitive, as in this instance. 3 In this use it is a pure Semitism 
and is probably a literal translation of the Aramaic words of 


3 E. g. Gen. 14:14, Ex. 15:20, 26:22. Numbers 25:8. Joshua 24:6. 



24 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Jesus. 4 In the Septuagint it is used in many senses. Most fre¬ 
quent perhaps is the literal sense of space relation; those who 
came oirLau nvos would come literally behind him, or after him. 5 
Quite frequently also is it used with verbs of pursuit in the sense 
of pursuing after anyone. Perhaps as frequently it is also used 
in the expression cucoXov&eiv oiriau deov, meaning to follow after 
God or after strange gods. This sense is similar to though not 
identical with the interpretation usually placed upon this passage, 
that Jesus was explaining the conditions of discipleship in a spir¬ 
itual sense. 

In other instances however, the context makes omaco an al¬ 
most exact equivalent of “with.’' And there are many instances 
in which almost identical words are used to request or demand 
that persons “follow after” in the sense of attachment to a cause 
or with a meaning that is military. 

For example in Judges 3 :28 the Greek of the Septuagint 
reads: 

Kai elite irpos avrovs, Kara^rjre oirLaco pov, on irapebwKe Kvpios 
0€os tovs ex&povs rjp&v rrjv Mcoa/3 ev x^P 1 W&v. k ai Kare^aav 
biriffa) avrov. 

This is translated in the revised version 

“And he said unto them ‘Follow after me, for Jehovah hath 
delivered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands.’ And they 
went down after him.” 

’Oiriaco in this instance obviously indicates the relation be¬ 
tween the military leader and his followers. 

In Judges 4:14 the language 

Karefir] BapaK Kara rod opovs 0a/3cop Kai beKa xAiaSes avbpcov 
oirLao) avrov 
is translated 

4 Cf. Blass-Thackeray, Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 129. 

“Origen’s discussion of this expression (Comm, on Matt, ad loc.) Well- 
hausen, Das Evangelium Marci, p. 66. 



25 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

‘Barak went down from Mount Tabor and ten thousand men 
after him.” 

Again the relation is not merely spatial but involves the re¬ 
lation between the leader and his followers. 

In I Samuel 11:7 

/cat aneaTeiKev eis irav opiov Tapa^X ev x eL P L ayyehwv, \eyuv, 
os ovk eaTLV eKiropevopevos dirLaoo SaouX /cat oH/rco Sa/xomyX, Kara 
rade iroir]<Tov(n rots fiovcriv avrov. 
is translated 

“And he sent throughout all the borders of Israel by the hands 
of messengers saying, ‘Whosoever cometh not after Saul and after 
Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.’ ” 

Here, unquestionably, the relation intended is not merely 
that the men should come behind or after Saul and Samuel or 
as their disciples, but that they shall come in the capacity of fol¬ 
lowers subject to their orders. 

In Nehemiah 4:23, the Greek translators failed to follow 
the Hebrew closely, so that the English translation of the He¬ 
brew does not track with the Greek. The Septuagint reads, 

Kal 7]pr]v eydi Kal ot avhpes rrjs cfrvkaKrjs ottl(T co juou . 

Of which an accurate translation is 

“And I was there and the men of the guard behind me.” 

The context makes the meaning of the Greek compulsory; 
the men of the guard were subject to the orders of Nehemiah. 
To assume that it meant purely spatial relation is impossible as 
there was no particular front which could determine how Nehe^ 
miah must face in order that the watchmen might be behind him. 

The circumstances make a similar interpretation of these 
words the reasonable one in this instance. Jesus was preparing 
to go upon an expedition, one of the highest importance, one 
that was actuated by a type of necessity growing out of his 
Messianic relation to the coming Kingdom. It was a mission 


26 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


which involved danger to himself and probably to those who 
might accompany him. Yet he invites them to come, saying, 

“If any man is willing to follow me, let him cease to consider 
himself and follow me.” 

This is clearly an invitation to enter into the relation of a 
follower and a participator in his enterprise. He immediately 
proceeds to give the reason why one should be careless of his 
personal safety in such an undertaking. Under existing circum¬ 
stances, caution, an attempt to exercise prudence, will be of no 
value, for “he that prefers to save his life is going to lose it,” in 
the terrors of that awful day of the Lord, which is immediately 
at hand; while by taking the hazard and participating in the 
movement 

“He who shall lose his life for the sake of me and of my mes¬ 
sage of the coming Kingdom shall find it” 
in the Kingdom of God which is to follow. He gives a definite 
warning of the danger involved in refusing to give to his words 
and to his invitation such respect as they properly deserve, by 
assuring his hearers that they will receive in the coming King¬ 
dom precisely the same consideration which they have given to 
him and to his words in this generation. And to confirm the 
sense of emergency he assures them that the whole event will be 
consummated within the lifetime of those who listen to him; 
that as he so often has stated, the Kingdom of Heaven is im¬ 
mediately at hand. 

What the response was to this general invitation, extended 
alike to the disciples and “the multitude,” there is no informa¬ 
tion. Evidently the number who joined him at this time was not 
very large, for they were able to pass through Galilee without 
arousing suspicion, even with the process of quiet mustering of 
additional followers which is revealed in Matthew 17 :22. This 
conclusion, however, is not compulsory, as it was the time of 
preparation for the Passover, and a considerable group could 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 27 

have been assembled without arousing suspicion of any unusual 
purpose. 

If this were the only instance where Jesus asked people to 
follow him in the literal physical sense of attaching themselves 
to an expedition, there might be grounds for hesitation in ap¬ 
plying this interpretation to this passage. But there are several 
recorded occasions, both prior and subsequent to this, when he 
extended similar invitations. The very first invitation to anyone 
to attach himself to Jesus was couched in language very similar, 
and with an identical use of oxloxo. This was the call of the 
first of the Twelve, in Mark 1 : 17 , 18 : 

ehrev avrois 6 T^crous, Aeure 6 x 1 ( 70 ) pov, Kal Trourjaa) vpas 
yevea&ai a\eeis avdpojTcov. Kal ev&vs d<£eVres ra SUrva 17 koXov fir]crav 
avrco. 

“Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become 
fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets and followed him.” 

In this instance the result of the invitation was that they 
followed him, r)Ko\ov{hr]crav avrco. When the invitation was re¬ 
peated shortly after to the sons of Zebedee, 6 x 1 ( 70 ) was used 
again in describing what they did: Kal a^evres tov irarepa .... 
airifk&ev 6x1(70) avrov. 

“And leaving their father—they went after him.” 

The form of invitation here is practically identical with 
that of Mark 8 : 34 , and it is reasonable to assume that a similar 
result was expected to follow its acceptance. Simon and Andrew 
and James and John left everything and followed him, airrfK^ev 
6 x 1 ( 70 ) avrov, became subject to his orders. Similarly those in¬ 
vited at Caesarea Philippi were expected to lose sight of their 
own welfare, to ignore their personal desires, to forget them¬ 
selves, and to follow, evidently in the same sense in which the 
earliest disciples followed. This sense included a subjection of 
the followers’ will to that of Jesus, an embarkation upon the 


28 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


same undertaking in which he was engaged, and a physical fol¬ 
lowing wherever he was to go. 

The language of Jesus in Mark 8:33 (Matthew 16:23), in 
answer to the suggestion of Simon that he should not go to 
Jerusalem as he proposed, presents an interesting translation 
problem. The Greek is : 

VTaye ottlctco pov, hdTava, bn ov (frpoveis ra rod &eov aXXa 
ra t&v avftpUTvwv, 

which has been translated, (R. V.) 

Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou mindest not the things of 
God, but the things of men. 

The meaning apparently intended and universally under¬ 
stood by this translation is that Peter was ordered away from 
Jesus, out of his sight. Now it is striking, to say the least, that 
in Mark 1:17 Jesus should say devre dmcru pov meaning an in¬ 
vitation to come with him, while he says viraye oTriao) pov in 
Mark 8:33, meaning a command to go away from him. By this 
method the meaning of oirLau is made diametrically opposite in 
the two instances. Were it not for the 2a rava one would im¬ 
mediately say that the translation misses the sense; that what 
Jesus really meant was to silence Peter’s objections, and to com¬ 
mand him anew to follow him in this new undertaking as he had 
once before decided to do. Then a comma would follow uxaYe, 
and it would be best translated something like this: 

Come, follow me; for you are thinking not of the purposes of 
God, but of human purposes. 

But that 2 arava interferes most seriously with such an idea. 
It is found in all the manuscripts and cannot be ignored. Evi¬ 
dently it had this definite form very early, if not in the earliest 
text of Mark (Matthew evidently took it directly from Mark). 
Yet a cautious inquiry might be permitted. 

Could the recorded answer of Jesus to the tempter at the 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


29 


time of the Temptation have been assimilated with the actual 
words of Jesus to Peter, thus obscuring the instruction to “line 
up” which constituted its actual form? Jesus’ remark in reply 
to the final temptation (Matt. 4:10) was V7raye , Earara. This 
the revised version renders “Get thee hence, Satan.” Now viraye 
is a word of many uses. Rarely it carries the fundamental mean¬ 
ings of its components; i. e., to lead under or to subject ; e. g., 
Sept. Ex. 14:21. More frequently in the New Testament it 
means depart ; e. g. Mark 6:33, Luke 8:42. Still more frequent¬ 
ly it is used in the present imperative, as in Matt. 4:10, now 
under discussion, as a word of dismissal, a command to depart. 
But quite as frequently it is used as type of expletive, as an in¬ 
troduction to another imperative in a sense almost exactly equiv¬ 
alent to our own word “Come” in such sentences as “Come, tell 
me your story!” In many instances the idea of motion usually 
involved in it almost or quite vanishes. Such instances are Matt. 
5:24; 19:21; 18:15 (W-H T Tr) Mark 10:21; Rev. 10:8. (An 
example from the classic Greek is Euripides, Cyclades 53 : viraye, 
tI jueXXels; “Come, what are you about to do?”) This without 
the EcLTava would be the normal interpretation in Mark 8 :33. 

The assimilation, if one occurred, grew out of confusion 
in the mind of the writer, or copyist, as to these two uses of 
the word. Attempt to give the first meaning in the second in¬ 
stance would have led naturally to the completion of the other 
expression, and thus the word Ecltclvcl, inexplicable as an epi¬ 
thet applied to Simon, crept in. Matthew’s addition to Mark, 
cncavdakov el e/jiov, then becomes an explanation furnished by that 
author for the strange phenomenon of Jesus calling Peter 
Earava. Yet even this explanation fails to be convincing, for 
there is an immense difference between being a GKavhaXov (liter¬ 
ally the tongue to a trap, a means of entrapping or misleading) 
because of unworthy advice, and identification with the Prince 


30 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


of this evil world. And against such suggestion lies the objec¬ 
tion that lies against every type of conjectural emendation . 6 

One other suggestion may be made, which, if acceptable 
eliminates the difficulty. All the translators and commentators 
have assumed that Sara vd is to be taken as another proper name 
for the devil, the great adversary of God. This however, is not 
necessary. The word basically is not a proper name, but is a 
common noun, meaning “adversary,” “antagonist,” “resister,” 
“opponent,” one who interferes or takes the opposite side of a 
controversy, an interferer, a trouble maker; its use as a strictly 
proper name is a late metonymy. As we have it here it is a di¬ 
rect transliteration of the Aramaic form of the Hebrew word 
'Jttte which occurs frequently in the Old Testament, and which 
is the substantive from the verb meaning “to oppose,” “to 
be hostile.” The Septuagint never translates by the proper 
noun Satan; it is actually transliterated only in I K 11:14 where 
it is a common noun and the translation of the R V is com¬ 
pulsory : 

“And Jehovah raised up an adversary unto Solomon.” 

In other places I'M is translated by emfiovKos 'I Sam. 29:4 
II Sam. 19:22 (23) IK (III K) 5:4 (18); or 5td/3oXos (with 
the same meaning, one who makes antagonistic plans or actions) 
I Chron. 21:1, Ps. 10 9:5, in all of which cases the word evi¬ 
dently means an adversary. In Job (1: 6 , 7, 8 , 9, 12 etc. and 
passim ) and Zechariah 3 :1 and 2 where the word is "jEton the 
antagonist, and is translated in the English versions by Satan, 
the Greek invariably uses 6 5ia/3oXos, retaining the article in all 
instances except one . 7 Even in that instance, Zechariah 3:2, 

8 Montefiore, for example (The Synoptic Gospels II 238) suggests “But 
‘me’ is possibly an early mistake for ‘thee’ which would make the words 
merely mean ‘depart’.” There is no end to the possibilities opened by this 
method, or to the uncertainty attaching to it. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


31 


where the Antagonist is addressed directly, the Greek reads not 
Varava but 5ia/3oXe, while the Hebrew even retains the article: 
“The Lord rebuke thee, O The Adversary.” Nowhere in the 
Old Testament is the word warped from its basic meaning of 
“adversary” or “the adversary” into a proper name. To the 
Jews of that time there was only the conception of a great name¬ 
less antagonist; there was no such proper name as Satan. Its 
use in such fashion is the product of many centuries of thought 
in which the words have been warped out of their original use. 

In the New Testament the use is practically identical. Where 
Jesus names the prince of evil spirits he calls him Beelzebul. 
Where he refers to him in general terms, he used the 

T T T * 

Aramaic form of the old Hebrew term, transliterated into the 
Greek as 6 aaravas. In the 36 instances where it occurs in the 
New Testament, with only seven exceptions (Matt. 4:10; 16:23 
(twice) Mark 3:23; 8:33; Luke 22:3; II Cor. 12:7), three of 
which are direct address, the word is used always with the ar¬ 
ticle, 6 aaravas, as a descriptive noun rather than as a proper 
name.* In almost every case it is better translated thus, keeping 
the article, as the adversary, the interferer. 

It is used in direct address in only two incidents; the 
Temptation and the other one under discussion. In Matt. 4:10 
there is no question that Jesus was addressing the Evil Spirit, 
the tempter. However it is not necessary even there to consider 
it a proper name. ''Tnaye, aarava could be as fully represented 

7 Moffatt translates the Job instances “the adversary,” though he trans¬ 
lates the Greek Varavas in the N. T. by Satan as in the other English versions. 

*Mark 3 :23, which omits the article, is the most persuasive of the use 
as a proper name. However, its parallel, Matt. 12:26, uses the article, and 
indicates clearly that the passage was interpreted to mean the adversary, espe¬ 
cially, as immediately afterwards (v. 27) Jesus uses the proper name Beelze¬ 
bub. Cadoux (The Sources of the Second Gospel, p. 23) tries to make the 
two different names into an argument for separate sources for Mark, but is 
unconvincing when it is recognized that one is the general term, the other 
the proper name. 



32 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


by “Get out of my sight, thou deceiver, thou interferes” And 
the case of Mark 8:33 is fully intelligible upon the basis of such 
meaning. The translation then becomes: “Come, accept my lead¬ 
ership, you trouble maker, for you are thinking not of divine 
things, but of human motives.” This returns to 6ttl<tu ixov the 
meaning it carries elsewhere, that of the position of follower, of 
obedience to leadership. 8 

This suggestion, of course utterly incapable of confirmation, 
for no further material is available in the record. 9 But it is en¬ 
tirely compatible with the accompanying facts. And if it is not 
acceptable, some other, different from the current explanation, 
must be found, for it is entirely irrational to suppose, as the 
standard translation does, that Jesus, when he used the language 
previously used by him for inviting followers, was ordering Peter 
away from him and immediately afterwards (Mark 8:34) used 
practically the same language to invite others to follow him. 


8 Swete {The Gospel according to Mark, ad loc.) discusses this view in 
nart in particular Origen’s conclusion that torUrw nov in this instance means 
to get behind Jesus in the sense of a follower. He does not approve the idea 
on account of the Haye, the expletive, introductory use of which he has 
overlooked. Like Wellhausen (see note 9, infra ) he identifies the construc¬ 
tion with the els rd birioa of the Septuagint which of course is unjustifiable, 
but also calls attention to the construction in Isaiah xxxvui, 17, where drlaa, M ov 
undoubtedly means “behind me,” though also in a figurative sense. There is 
no doubt about the “behind me” translation; the question is solely concerning 
the sense in which Peter is supposed to “get behind” Jesus, and will be de¬ 
termined largely by the reader’s general conception of Jesus’ plans at this time. 
Swete has the traditional idea, and has _ no particular^ need for the . inter - 
pretation proposed here. Origen’s reasoning is very similar to that m the 
text supra, identifying the oiriao} nov of this instance with that^of Matt. 4.1V 
and 10:38, but not applying the same idea of inraye and aarava. 

9 Wellhausen {Das Bvangelium Marci, p. 66, on Mark 8:32, 33) takes 
a directly opposite view: “ ’Oir'uroi nov kann nicht durch ein komma von viraye 
getrennt werden, aber allerdings auch nicht wie in 2 Reg. 9 :19 bedeuten: begib 
dich hinter mich. Es fiigt dem inraye, welches in Mt. 4,10 allein steht, nicht 


hinzu, und ist das selbe wie KTlH^b bl ; vgl. Joa. 6;66; 18:6; 20:14. Das 
Pronomen der ersten Person ist also unrichtig erganzt, besser ware das der 
zweiten Person gewesen.” “ ’Ot riaco nov cannot be divided from faaye through 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


33 


What Jesus wanted at that time was followers; he was engaged 
in inviting followers; and his remark to Peter, complicated 
though it be with other ideas in the form in which we now have 
it, must have been an invitation to do what Peter actually did 
do, that is, to follow him, even though Peter’s ideas about what 
should or would occur were in error. 

The circumstance mentioned in Luke 9:57-59 and Matthew 
8:22 is another instance where Jesus invited one to become an 
immediate, physical follower: 

“He said to another ‘follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, suffer me 
first to go and bury my father’; but he said unto him, ‘follow me, 
and leave the dead to bury their dead’.” 

This invitation interpreted in a purely spiritual sense is not 


a comma, but also above all it cannot signify, as in II Kings, 9:19, ‘Get thy¬ 
self behind me.’ It adds nothing to the vxaye which in Matthew 4:10 stands 

alone, and is the same as the Hebrew jnimb bi back! to the rear! As 
for example, John 6:66; 18:6; 20:14. The pronoun of the first person is also 
incorrectly supplied, that would better have been the second person.” This 
would perhaps be convincing, did Wellhausen give any reason for his so posi¬ 
tive statement. But he not only does not support it; he discusses it on the 
basis of an assumed identity with an entirely different construction. The 
els ra oirLaa of the three citations from John are not at all identical with the 
plain diriao} fj.ov of our problem, or even with the dxicrco nov of II Kings 9:19. 
The three John examples clearL have a purely spatial relation; the citation 
from II Kings, more nearly parallel with our example, adds a personal rela¬ 
tion to that of space; while all of them are constructions essentially different 
from the one we are considering because of the introductory eis ra. “Go among 
the things behind me” or merely “behind” is perhaps quite equivalent to the 
Hebrew expression, but is also quite other than “come after me.” Obviously 
the exact parallels are to be found among the examples quoted in the text. 
Wellhausen’s statement is purely an unsupported statement of the old view, 
presenting the necessities involved in handling the Greek so as to conform to 
the classic idea of identity with Matthew 4:10. His conclusion that dxLa-co /xov 
adds nothing to the vxaye is pure assumption, and considering the use of 
oxlctco /jlov in the words of Jesus himself, in Mark 1:17, 1:20 and 8:34, quite 
unjustifiable. 

And the suggestion that the pronoun should be in the second person as¬ 
sumes that he should have said something entirely different from what he did 
say! The safer assumption is that the expression as used here has the same 
effect as when used by Jesus elsewhere, to wit, an invitation to Simon to 
“follow me.” 



34 Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

intelligible. There is no contradiction between discipleship to 
Jesus in a spiritual sense and the performance of the filial duty 
of burial of a parent. Certainly Jesus did not mean that those 
who follow him as disciples should not bury their non-christian 
parents. The real meaning is that for the purpose in hand, for 
which Jesus asked this man to follow him, there was not suffi¬ 
cient time to permit the act which the follower proposed; the 
end was immediately at hand, those who were not with Jesus 
would be outside the Kingdom, therefore he should leave the 
dead to be buried by those who also were the same as dead, and 
come away with Jesus. Similarly the succeeding verses of Luke 
9:61-62, where another new follower requested permission to 
bid farewell to those of his household, describe an incident that 
is not intelligible except upon the assumption that this man was 
going immediately to follow Jesus away from where they were. 
No farewells are needed by those who begin to follow Jesus in 
the sense of spiritual discipleship. Only the supposition that they 
were embarking upon a dangerous enterprise, which severed hu¬ 
man ties and which permitted no consideration of normal human 
motives, would justify the answer of Jesus to this man: 

“No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is 
fit for the kingdom of God.” 

The conclusion is irresistible. Jesus had decided to go to 
Jerusalem. He invited others to go with him, urging them to 
ignore the danger, promising an equivalent reward for those 
who should lose their lives in this dangerous undertaking, assur¬ 
ing them that any attempt to avoid the danger would not mere¬ 
ly be ineffective, but would result in complete disaster when the 
kingdom of God should actually arrive. As a result of this he 
gathered a nucleus of followers beginning at Caesarea Philippi, 
which mustered additional adherents in Galilee from the num¬ 
bers who had been attached to Jesus before he departed to avoid 
Herod, and added others by continuous invitations as they passed 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


35 


through Perea, and on to Jerusalem. Those who followed were 
not merely an incidental multitude of those who were curious to 
hear his message or of those who came to be healed or to see 
signs and wonders, but constituted a loose organization, person¬ 
ally attached to him as his followers, operating under his orders.* 
Something of this sense of organization and authority ap¬ 
pears in one of the names by which Jesus was addressed. Usu¬ 
ally in the Synoptic Gospels the Aramaic word used by his fol¬ 
lowers was translated by Kvptos which we translate as “Lord.” 
This was merely a term of deferential homage, an expression of 
deep respect. A similar meaning is found in the paftJet. or 
pafifiovvi which are close transliterations of an Aramaic title of 
honor and high position which also included a recognition of 
superior knowledge and wisdom. The last mentioned idea is also 


*Eisler, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist, emphasizes the signifi¬ 
cance of the word tgodos in Luke 9:31, and builds upon it the theory that 
Jesus planned an exodus into the wilderness, to be organized at Jerusalem, 
which ultimately developed into a violent outbreak against the Roman authori¬ 
ties at Jerusalem. The passage occurs in the story of the Transfiguration, which 
immediately follows the story of the Caesarea Philippi invitation, about eight 
days later. The word is usually translated “death,” in this place so that the 
passage reads “and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish in 
Jerusalem.” This meaning of tgoSos is paralleled in N. T. only once, then not 
certainly (2 Pet. 1:15), and raises enough doubt to give color to the Eisler 
idea, or something like it. If the preposition permitted, it would be much more 
reasonable to translate it “and spake of the expedition he was about to accom¬ 
plish into Jerusalem.” This would be entirely consecutive with the idea of 
beginning an expedition by the invitation of vs. 23-27. But all the Greek manu¬ 
scripts read tv 'lepovaaX-qp. which can be translated only as “in Jerusalem,”— 
all save one. D reads Its 'I epowaXrm which fits the suggestion exactly, and 
fully justifies the eijodos els 'I epovadXrip,. The Latin manuscripts all read in 
Iherosolyma (or Hierusalem). Since Iherosolyma (Hierusalem) is indeclinable, 
its case here may be either ablative (as with the other Greek manuscripts) or 
accusative (with D), so that it would not be unjustifiable to say that the 
Western text in this passage fully supports the suggestion “the expedition into 
Jerusalem which he was about to accomplish.” This idea, if tenable, would 
completely eliminate the basis upon which Eisler’s theory is built. Carried out, 
it would mean that the two incidents (the invitation and the transfiguration con¬ 
ference) were originally consecutive and coordinated, but that the growing em¬ 
phasis on the idea of Jesus’ preknowledge of his death by the time the Greek 
manuscripts were written had overwhelmed the original idea, and the change pi 
preposition was made to conform with the changed outlook, while the earlier 



36 Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

expressed in the 5i5a<7/caXos which is often used in all four of 
the gospels. 

In Luke however, another term of address is found six 
times, in the title €7rt(jrdr^s. This carries an added connotation, 
very different from the feeling of respect and honor which makes 
up the other appellations. 10 The base meaning of this word is, 
one set over another or others, with authority. Wherever used, 
and it is used many times, in the Septuagint, 11 it carries this 
fundamental notion of organized and recognized authority. In 
numerous instances it represents a military authority, is trans¬ 
lated “commander.” 12 And its use in addressing Jesus indicates 

Latin manuscripts and D preserved the original story. The suggestion is made 
only tentatively, and to be considered as a possibility in connection with Eisler’s 
thesis; it is by no means sufficiently supported to justify definitely setting the 
witness of all the Greek manuscripts aside, and besides this idea is not at all 
essential to the thesis of this book. But it is at least an interesting possibility 
and is not psychologically contradictory. 

10 Dalman (The Words of Jesus, p. 336) says “The form kiruTTara 
occurring six times in Luke (5-5; 8-24, 45; 9-33, 49; 17-13) alongside of 
the commoner StSdo-zcaXe, is merely a Greek synonym for the latter, and both 

are to be traced back to the Aramaic “sn ” But he is evidently in error, for 
not once is the Hebrew word which is translated eTiaTarris in the Septuagint 

the equivalent of h !in . Nowhere else can the two Greek words be found 
used as synonyms; the basic ideas are entirely different. It is true that 
kTKTTaTris is used by Luke several times in connections prior to the beginning 
of the trip to Jerusalem, but the title once carried into the story, was very 
readily transferred into contexts other than those in which it had its origin. 
The essential point lies in the fact that this authoritative, semi-military title, 
was attached to Jesus at all.—Dalman’s appeal to the Peshitta, which, he 

says, always translates Ixio-rAra by HH, is not convincing, for by the time of the 
translation into the Peshitta the idea that the various forms of address were 
practically identical in meaning was universal and the original distinction was 
lost. It may be observed also that the other Syriac versions do not always 

use ni ; for instance the Bvangelion da Mepharresshe at Luke 8:24 has 
maran, the same word used in the customary expression of the early Chris¬ 
tians maran atha. Lord, come, which still carries with it some of the sense 
of authority contained in emaraT^s and lacking in the other usual forms of 
address. 

M E. g. Ex. 1:11, 5:14; I (III) K. 5:16; II Chron. 2:2, 31:12. 

12 E. g., II (IV) K 25:19; Jer. 52:25. In Jer. 36:26 it is translated “ruler.” 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


37 


recognition of actual capacity to command, of position as head 
of an organization. 

It is notable that Luke, who alone of the evangelists uses 
this term, is in a preeminent sense the chronicler of the expedi¬ 
tion on Jerusalem. The special material of Luke, that part which 
is drawn neither from Mark nor Q, is composed largely of the 
infancy narrative and of the events which occurred on the road 
to Jerusalem and in that city. To our knowledge of the Galilean 
period he has added only very little, but of this later period he 
is the source of most of our detailed information. Evidently he 
was especially interested in this phase of Jesus’ career, and had 
access to material not available to the others or that was ignored 
by them. 13 And it is significant that the evangelist who more than 
any of the others was impressed with the dramatic movement up¬ 
on Jerusalem, is the one who also preserves for us the form of ad¬ 
dress which shows the organized, semi-military authority which 
Jesus clearly exercised in that historic journey. The authority 
that sent out the seventy to make advance arrangements, that 
requisitioned quarters in Jericho and an animal in Bethphage; 
that appears in the dread with which he was approached and 
his capacity to carry his crowd forward despite the fear which 
had seized them; that arranged the messianic features of the 
approach to Jerusalem, that reached its highest fulfillment in the 
expulsion of the merchants and bankers and officials from the 
Temple and the exercise of complete control there for his one 
great day, is clearly manifest in the oirLaoo gov of his invitation 
and the title, e 7 rnrr&ra, commander, which clung to the tradition 
through the years, to be recovered and preserved by Luke, the 
latest and most thorough investigator who attempted to write 
his record. 


13 Creed, The Gospel according to St. Luke, Streeter, The Four Gospels, 
p. 219, and Burkitt, Jesus Christ, p. 74, think he may have acquired it at Caes- 



IV 

'ZvGTptfyoixevwv 8e clvt&v ev rfj Takikala 

Matthew 17:22 A. V. reads: 

“And when they abode in Galilee Jesus said to them, ‘the Son of 
Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men’.” 

This passage is, apparently, not especially significant. As a 
matter of fact it is one verse of the New Testament which has 
aroused practically no comment throughout the centuries. Of 
the early fathers only Origen and Hilary have commented upon 
it. It appears to be a bald statement of fact, without exegetical 
value and devoid of historical significance. 

Yet this verse carries with it a textual problem which is 
basic in the determination of the accuracy of the conception of 
the nature of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, which is the thesis of 
this study. 

The translation of this passage has had slight variation in 
the important English versions. Wyckliffe gave it, 

“and whilis thei weren abidynge to gidre in Galile: Ihesus seide 
to hem, etc.” 

Tyndale translates it, 

“As they passed the tyme in Galile, Iesus sayde unto them, etc.” 

Cranmer’s Bible has it 

“While they were occupied in Galile Iesus sayd unto them, etc.” 

The Geneva Bible is identical with Tyndale. The Rheims 
Bible has it, 

“And when they conuersed in Galile Iesus sayd to them, etc.” 

area, where at one time (Acts 21:8) he lived in the home of Philip the evange¬ 
list, one of the Twelve, who made the trip with Jesus and would have been a 
dependable source for this information. This first opportunity may have been 
supplemented during Luke’s later two year stay in Caesarea while Paul was 
awaiting trial by the Roman procurator after his arrest in Jerusalem. 


( 38 ) 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


39 


The revised version is identical with King James, and Good- 
speed puts it, 

“As they were going about in Galilee.” 

This is enough variation here to indicate some: uncertainty 
as to the exact meaning of the passage. This uncertainty be¬ 
comes more evident when we find in the margin of the American 
Revised Version, which in its text retains the A. V. form, the 
suggestion “Some ancient authorities read ‘were gathering them¬ 
selves together’,” and is emphasized when we find that Moffatt 
translates “when his adherents mustered in Galilee.” 

This marginal suggestion, and the Moffatt translation, bring 
a new note into the passage. The other versions, though vary¬ 
ing among themselves, still have a general uniformity, indicating 
that the variation is one of interpretation rather than of original 
language lying behind the translation. All of them indicate that 
Jesus spoke to them while they were merely passing the time in 
Galilee; the King James and Revised Versions fairly represent 
the spirit of them all. But these modern suggestions (Moffatt 
and R. V. margin) bring in an entirely new feature. According 
to them, Jesus and his associates were not merely staying in Gal¬ 
ilee, but were busy in assembling themselves, in “mustering” in 
Galilee. The difference in translation reflects the difference in 
the text mentioned with it. 

It is of course obvious that the American revisers’ mar¬ 
ginal translation and the Moffatt translation sustain the idea 
that Jesus was gathering a crowd to take with him, while the 
old translation has no effect whatever upon that thesis. Conse¬ 
quently, the question as to the variations in the language and 
their manuscript support becomes of first importance. 

The Greek text which was before the translators in 1611, 
was practically the Textus Receptus as we now have it, which 


40 


Jesus' Jerusaeem Expedition 


had in fact been the text which had been translated in all the 
variations prior thereto. 

In this text the verse in question reads, 

’ AvacrTpeefropevoiv 8e avrcov ev rf) TaXtXata, ehrev 6 ’ Itjjovs , k.t.X. 

Consequently, all the variants in the English versions are 
merely different attempts to translate the Greek verb avaarpeffru 
as found in the Textus Receptus. Subsequent editors of the 
Greek text, including Griesbach, Scholz and Tischendorf in his 
first seven editions, carry the same Greek. But first in Lach- 
mann, later in Tregelles’ New Testament, followed by Tischen¬ 
dorf’s eighth edition of the Greek New Testament, this verse 
reads: 

'ZvcrTpecfropevuv 8e avr&v ev rfj TaAiAaia, ehrev 6 ’Irjaovs, k. t. X. 

Since that time all the great editors, with the exception of 
Scrivener and Burgon, including Westcott and Hort, Nestle and 
Von Soden, read arnTpeffropevuv with Lachmann, Tischendorf 
and Tregelles. Evidently all these great editors rely upon the 
“ancient authorities” mentioned in the American Revised Ver¬ 
sion’s margin. The English revisers did not accept this reading, 
but retained the old. 

Examining the manuscript authorities for these two forms, 
seeking to learn why they differ as they do, and how important 
the difference 1 is, we find that all the existing Greek manuscripts, 
with the exception of three, carry this verse as does the Textus 
Receptus. But those three manuscripts are tf, B and 1, the two 
oldest uncials and the cursive most closely allied with them. 

The almost overwhelming weight of H and B in agreement 
would, ordinarily, be sufficient to determine the text at this point. 
Agreement of these two manuscripts, a century older than any 
other Greek manuscript of the New Testament now known to 
be in existence, so old in fact that probably not more than one 
or two copies intervene between them and the originals them- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


41 


selves, in addition to the fact that they were almost certainly 
written in Alexandria, the greatest seat of learning of that day 
and the seat of the greatest precision in the production of critical 
manuscripts of the ancient world, is for scholars almost invari¬ 
ably sufficient to overbalance all the other manuscript evidence 
in existence. Very rarely will any modern textual critic be will¬ 
ing to set aside a reading supported by these two great manu¬ 
scripts for any other manuscript authorities whatsoever. They 
are not necessarily errorless, however, and in a few cases their 
combined authority has been abandoned on grounds of inherent 
improbability. They might possibly be in error in this instance; 
and as none of the editors who have adopted this reading have 
had in mind the effect which it is now proposed to give to the 
changed language, it becomes necessary to go a little further into 
the inherent probabilities of this reading. 

It may first be suggested that the argument ad aspera 1 so 
frequently applied in difficult passages, is clearly applicable to 
this place. To apply this test, it is necessary to examine the exact 
significance of the term proposed to be substituted. 

Xv(TTpecf)co is used as a verb in only one other place in the 
New Testament. 2 In this place it is used to mean the assembling 
or gathering together of a collection of sticks into a bundle. 
The derivative noun, crwTpocpi), is used in one place; 3 there it 
means an unlawful concourse of people, a riotous gathering. In 
the Septuagint the verb appears seventeen times. In eleven of 
these it is used as an equivalent of some form of the Hebrew 

1 Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua. “The difficult reading is preferable 
to the easy one.” Cf. Nestle, Introduction to Nezu Testament Criticism, p. 
157: Lectio difficilior placet, “The more difficult reading satisfies.” Westcott 
and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the original Greek, p. 22, 
§28, in discussing the underlying principle of this well recognized rule of 
textual criticism says, “No motive can be thought of which could lead a scribe 
to introduce consciously a worse reading instead of a better.” 

2 Acts 28:3. 

8 Acts 19:40. 



42 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


verb which has the basic meaning “conspire” and in every 
instanced translated in both King James and the Revised Ver¬ 
sions as some form of “conspired” or “made a conspiracy.” In 
classic Greek cri ><rrpe0co has a root meaning of turning or rolling 
together, being used for example as the equivalent of “twisting 
up.” Its most frequent classic use, however, is as a military term 
meaning, in the middle voice, to form into a compact body, to 
collect themselves, to rally, to muster. Apparently, among the 
Septuagint and New Testament writers it had acquired the ad¬ 
ditional meaning above referred to, of a secret and unlawful 
assemblage, with purposes contrary to government, and if ac¬ 
cepted as the proper reading in this place it should carry such 
additional meaning. 

The word avaarpe^co has as its basic meaning to turn 
again,” “to turn hither and thither.” Hence it has readily ac¬ 
quired the New Testament usage of “behaving oneself”; it is 
frequently translated, “walk.” The idea of “abide or rest, 
given it in the usual translations of this verse, though perhaps a 
little strange, is not entirely foreign to it, and perhaps is as fairly 
representative of the probable application in this place, as any 
other equivalent that could be found. Such a meaning is not in 
any sense contradictory to the notion that has prevailed gener¬ 
ally as to the character of Jesus’ operations, so very naturally 
the passage has acquired this meaning. 

Now the application of the argumentum ad aspera is this: 
if the original reading was avaarpe^oi, abide, upon what theory 
would anyone, especially anyone of the precision shown gener¬ 
ally by the copyists of N and B, change it to owrpe</>co, of which 
the normal and current significance would be a “gathering of 
themselves together” in a secret and unlawful sense? In other 
words it is so extremely unlikely as to be practically impossible 
that any careful scribe or corrector would change a word en- 


Jesus" Jerusalem Expedition 


43 


tirely compatible with the current conception of the story of 
Jesus for a word entirely incompatible with it. Upon the other 
hand if the original word was owrpe^co and the conception of 
the story which is necessary to make this term understandable 
in this connection had already passed out of the minds of the 
Christians of that day, it is easy to see how an early reviser, 
finding this word practically untranslatable according to his un¬ 
derstanding, could make the slight modification necessary to turn 
it into a word which would fit his ideas and make the passage 
rational. 

In other words, intrinsic probability is all with the assump¬ 
tion that avarpe(f)co (the reading of X B and 1) was the original 
word which later for some reason was changed by someone into 
avaoTpe^co. 4 The change made the passage comprehensible and, 
therefore, determined the text from that time on. Let us now 
see what the record of the texts, other than the uncial Greeks, 
indicates as to the probability of this view. 

Because of the apparent insignificance of the passage, we 
are deprived of a type of evidence frequently available for such 
a situation. Only one of the Greek Fathers who wrote prior to 
the date of tf-B has mentioned this passage. Origen (flor. 185- 
254) mentions the passage in his commentary upon Matthew, 
but unfortunately throws no light upon our problem. Evidently 
he quoted from memory, for he uses the verb without either of 
the troublesome prefixes, making the passage read, arpe^opevuv 
be avTcov els rrjv Ta\i\aiav. This of course is worth just nothing 
to our inquiry. Hilary, who wrote in Latin about the time that 
these manuscripts (tf and B) were produced (flor. 300-367) 

4 Loisy, L’Hvangiles Synoptiques II, 58, note 3, suggests the same idea: 
“avaaTpefoukvuv peut etre une correction.” “’Avaarpefopevuv may perhaps be a 
correction.” But he offers no reason for actually concluding that such was 
the case. 



44 Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

mentions the passage, but uses the vulgate form, which will be 
discussed later. 

Consequently, we are without patristic evidence. 

In the versions we are not in much better case so far as 
the Syriac and Coptic are concerned. In the Syriac, Burkitt 
gives as the equivalent of both the Curetonian and Sinaitic manu¬ 
scripts “And when they were abiding in Galilee.” Gwilliam gives 
it in Latin as Quum versarentur autem in Gellila, with a varia¬ 
tion from another manuscript quum ambularent. Apparently, 
both these texts are based on avaarpe^co. No Syriac text as 
quoted by Burkitt or Gwilliam shows other variation. Horner 
quotes these same authorities as support for GvcTpe^u, but the 
Syriac specialists do not justify that position. 

These versions all were made as late or later than some of 
the Greek uncial manuscripts which carry avaarpfyu and con¬ 
sequently are of no greater authority. The Diatessaron was 
translated from the Greek into the Syriac about A. D. 170 and 
in its original form would be a valuable witness to the Greek 
text as it then prevailed. But aside from the fact that we have 
it only in a retranslation into the Arabic made at a much later 
date and subject to intervening modification to conform to the 
current text, unfortunately the Diatessaron does not use Mat¬ 
thew at this point of the narrative, but adopts the parallel from 
Luke, which does not include the feature in question. Conse¬ 
quently we are left without effective witness from the Syriac. 

Similar facts apply to the Sahidic and Bohairic forms of 
the Egyptian version. The Sahidic is translated by Horner “as 
they returned to Galilee.” The Bohairic gives “but having re¬ 
turned to Galilee” etc. Both of these he considers to be the equiv¬ 
alent ol ava(TTpe4>o) but, as in the case of the Syriac, all the Cop¬ 
tic versions were made later than N and B. Consequently, they 
are of no more authority than the Greek manuscript W pro- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


45 


duced in the same area, and at approximately the same time, 
which also carries avacrTpecfrco, which authority is certainly less 
than that of X and B. 

Only in the old Latin do we have access to versions cer¬ 
tainly earlier in their origin than X and B. The Vulgate was 
produced only a little later, less than half a century, but certainly 
still more years divided it from the exemplar or exemplars, from 
which these two great manuscripts were copied, than came be¬ 
tween them and their own exemplars. It gives the reading “Con- 
versantibus autem eis in Galilaia,” the effect of which will be 
discussed later. 

In the old Latin proper we find a type of text which reaches 
back perhaps further than any other type, certainly further back 
than any of the other versions. Those texts which antedate the 
Vulgate and were, as a matter of fact, the basic text for Jerome’s 
revision, had their origin at uncertain date, but certainly very 
far back towards the very earliest years of Christianity. It is 
customary to assume that the period of translation into the Latin 
did not come until well along in the second century but there is 
little reason to support this view. 5 The Greek was widely dis¬ 
tributed throughout the Empire at the time of the beginning of 
the church, but it was by no means the universal language. The 
reason customarily offered for believing that everybody could 
speak Greek, to wit: that official documents of the Empire were 
issued in “both languages” is as a matter of fact proof of just 
the contrary. The necessity of using both languages grew out 
of the fact that there were numbers of people who understood 
only one or the other of the two languages. If everybody could 

5 Irenaeus, who wrote about a. d. 180 in Greek, was little earlier than 
Tertullian, who wrote in Latin from 198 to 217, and whose quotations indi¬ 
cate translations into the Latin, already current and probably made at a con¬ 
siderably earlier date. Minucius Felix is probably still earlier, and carries the 
same presumption as to his quotations. Westcott and Hort, Introduction, p. 
78, §108. 



46 


Jesus" Jerusalem Expedition 


speak Greek, there would have been no necessity for retaining 
the Gatin; but as a matter of fact, the official language of the 
Empire continued to be Latin even though both languages were 
used, and the influence of the dominant Romans must have given 
great prestige to the Latin in all the provinces. In those sections 
of the Empire that had been Romanized for a considerable pe¬ 
riod, the great mass of the population used Latin to the exclu¬ 
sion of the Greek. Particularly must this have been true in those 
areas like Italy, France, Spain and Rumania, where the modern 
language is only a modification of the Latin. Out of all that 
welter of polyglot population, have come no great peoples whose 
modern language is a modification of the Greek; in Greece alone 
has that language been able to hold its ground. This makes it 
practically certain that at this period, especially in all the west¬ 
ern sections of the Empire, such as Africa, Italy and Gaul, the 
dominant language among both the official and the common 
population was Latin. 

Consequently, though many of the early Christians spoke 
and read the Greek language with freedom, in every western con¬ 
gregation, composed for the most part as all of them were, of 
the uneducated classes, there must have been a large percentage 
who could understand with ease only the Latin. The assump¬ 
tion that the church spread most quickly among the exclusively 
Greek speaking elements seems to be properly based primarily 
upon the fact that the letters of Paul and the Gospels themselves 
were written first in Greek. This is evidence only of the fact 
that the New Testament writers, in most if not in all instances 
products of the East, chose for their own medium of expression 
the language easier for themselves. 6 There is no evidence that 

“Clement, who wrote to the Corinthians from Rome, naturally used Greek 
because he was addressing Greek readers. That does not signify that he used 
no Latin in his own church at Rome. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


47 


the preaching of the early Christian workers was confined to 
Aramaic or Greek speaking hearers ; undoubtedly even by the 
time of Nero there were great numbers of people who had be¬ 
come converted to the Christian faith and who spoke nothing 
but Gatin. And for the comfort and instruction of such Chris¬ 
tians there is every reason to believe that parts or all of the New 
Testament were very early translated into their own tongue. 7 

Such early translations were of course the precursors of the 
more carefully produced translations of the Gospels complete, 
or the entire New Testament. For this reason, the Gatin ver¬ 
sions ought to be witnesses to the early text, of extraordinary 
value, as the exemplars of our present manuscripts of these ver¬ 
sions, some of which are as early as the fourth century, must 
have been at least as old, or perhaps older, than the manuscripts 
from which X and B were copied. But their value is vitiated by 
the extraordinary carelessness with which these translations were 
made. Already by the time Jerome prepared the Vulgate, the 
Gatin translations had become so corrupt, so full of variations 
of many types, that he was unwilling to use any of them as a 
guide, saying that there were as many different types of texts 
as there were manuscripts. This carelessness was not confined 
to the older texts; Jerome himself used no greater uniformity 
or precision in making his translation than did the others. The 
use of many different Gatin words to translate the same Greek 
word is characteristic of all the Gatin texts, Jerome’s with the 
rest. The Vulgate, for example, uses eleven different verbs where 
the GXX used avaTpecfxa in the Old Testament, most of these 
instances being translations of one and the same Hebrew word. 8 

7 See Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, ii, 14, 15. Quoted in Nestle, 
Introduction, pp. 108-9-10. 

8 The extent of this variation, and at the same time the basic meaning of 
0Wrp<£ea>, may well be observed from the following table of parallel trans¬ 
lations of that Greek verb where it appears in the Septuagint: 



X 

d 

d 

> 

< 

X 

in 


X 

42 

d 

Oh 

ca 

42 

d 

N 

ca 

42 


Vi o_ _ 

X > >» 

X 

w x 


S3 

ea 

42 

S 

*-> 

o 

o 

Oh 

£ 

<u 


X! 

<u 

04 

42 

a 

ca 

bO 

42 

04 

<u 


IH-O 

a s 

bO a 

-2 a 

x) 4 _r 

2 ta 
Sto 

43 o 

tag 

W)w 


m 

04 

o 

4-> 

ea 

H 

• pH 

a 

c /2 

S3 

o 

u 

<v 

a 


X 

42 

H 

• pH 

ft 

in 

S3 

O 

a 


ca 

43 


X 

42 

>-l 
• pH 

a 

m 

S3 

o 

u 


X 

<u 

04 

• pH 

ft 

m 

S3 

o 

<4 


>* 

CJ 

ca 

t-i 

• pH 

ft 

m 

S3 

O 

<J 

ca 

<u 

X 

ca 

a 


0h 

ca 

£ 


42 

X 

<D 

H 

• rH 

V 

Sh 

• pH 

<D 

Vh 

• pH 

<D 

• pH 

<U 

• H 


c3 

d 

ft 

ft 

ft 

ft 

Cu 

O 

a 

M 

42 

CO 

in 

d 

C/2 

d 

C/2 

d 

C/2 

d 

CO 

a 

Oh 


co 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

bC 

bo 

<& 

CJ 

u 

CJ 

0 

CJ 

fl K J'v 


IX 

IX 

IX 

IX IX 


X 

p 

J-H 
• pH 

ft 

C/2 

S3 

o 

CJ 


42 


c/2 

$3 

O 

CJ 


42 

43 

43 

u 

• pH 

43 

£ 

bb 

u 

ea 


42 


>1 
*ftla 

s a 

o 

CJ 


a 

• pH 

ft 

in 

S3 

o 

cj 


X 

42 

04 
• rH 

ft 

in 

S3 

O 

<J 


42 

H 


ft 

in 
S3 
O 
u 

IX |X 


X d Q' IX 

W H P Q 


£ 

42 

Or 

X 

<L> 

w 


42 

-*-> 

ca 

JjC 

3 

> 


rv *4 
P £ 

r" J'i 

Vr |X 
P 


n. 


r~ i 
f • 

IX 

.n 


r r r r r r 

n> IX f! IX *T! JT! 

fXp. £'P'. IX IX 

g: r psL r p 
f p: & r r 

& r ^ 


>2 

u 

ctf 

Sh 

• pH 

ft 

m 

S3 

O 

cj 

ca 

<u 

X 

ca 

a 


4) 

H 

• pH 

ft 

in 

S3 

O 

cj 

IX 

P' 

r 


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Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


49 


Accuracy under such circumstances is of course impossible; and 
in the New Testament both the Vulgate and the older Latin 
manuscripts show as great variety. 

Consequently, one naturally expects what is actually found 
to be the case in all instances like the one under discussion, to 
wit: that there are great variations in the forms which this verse 
took in the old Latin writers. // g 2 have the verb the same as 
in the Vulgate, but turn the noun into the accusative: 

conversantibus autem eis in Galileam. 

a , b, ff 2 are the same, except for change of the pronoun and 
inversion of the ablative absolute : 

Ip sis autem conversantibus in Galileam. 

In ff 1 there is a change of the verb: 

Redeuntibus autem illis in Gallileam. 

c is essentially the same only with the ablative absolute re¬ 
versed : 

Ip sis autem redeuntibus. 

In e, however, we find an entirely different rendering: 

cum autem regrederetur ipse in Galileam. 

Two conclusions can be drawn from these varying transla¬ 
tions. The first is that there was by no means a common un¬ 
derstanding among the early Latin churches as to the meaning 
of this passage. Evidently they had trouble with it and did 
various things in attempting to make it intelligible. The other 
is that all of these translations are more nearly equivalent to 
avacrTpe^cx) than to (Tvarptyw . Tregelles gives Vulgate with f, 1 
g, 2 as supports for the reading crwTpecf) co and to these both 
Tischendorf and Horner add a , b, ff 2 n and q, but in this they 
are all evidently in error. Conversor is not the usual translation 
of c TV(TTpecf)u. As a matter of fact, at no other place in either 
the Old or New Testament is awTpecfru translated by any form 
of conversor by Jerome; but on the contrary, conversor is the 


50 Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

word usually used as the equivalent of a.va<jTpe<t>a). Of the eleven 
instances of avavTpefy co in the New Testament, seven are ren¬ 
dered by some form of conversor in the Vulgate; in the thirteen 
instances of avacrTpocfrr} all are translated cotiversatio. And cer¬ 
tainly redeo and regredior are more consonant with the basic 
idea of avacrTperfxo than with that of cruorpe^ico. 

Consequently, the testimony of the Latin versions upon its 
face appears to support the reading avaarptcj)w. This outcome, 
substantiated as it is by all the Greek manuscripts except three, 
and by all the Syriac and Coptic versions, would appear to es¬ 
tablish a strong presumption in favor of avaarpe^o) as the orig¬ 
inal word, were it not for the impossibility of seeing how any 
copyist, and especially the copyist of documents so exact as B 
and «, could ever have changed it to the incomprehensible 
avarpecfyco. 

This suggests another approach. If a rational explanation 
can be found whereby the original owrpe<£co came to be changed 
to avacTTpecfru, the probability will revert to the support of the 
two great old Greek Uncials. And such an explanation is not 
hard to find. 

The suggestion has previously been made that the story of 
Jesus’ expedition to Jerusalem, as it was told by the Synoptists, 
early became lost to the church. 9 It had no religious value; it 

9 In Introduction, p. x, Cf. J. Bartlett, Article Apostolic Fathers , Enc. 
Brit. Thirteenth Edition, 2-203: “The perspective of the gospel was seriously 
changed and its most distinctive features obscured.” This statement is probably 
intended in a spiritual sense by Bartlett, but it is fully as true in the historical 
sense. Similarly B. Weiss, Introduction xiv, showing that the early Christians 
lost the key to the understanding of the Apocalypse, so that it became a matter 
for discussion whether this book should be received as part of the New 
Testament, and Wrede calls attention to the fact that the basic ideas had 
changed even in the time between the writing of Mark and the compilation of 
Matthew: “Diese Ubersicht beweist schon, dasz die Anschauung vom Messian- 
ische Geheimnis fur Matthaeus nicht mehr die Bedeutung besitzt wie bei 
Markus. “This review indicates clearly that the outlook upon the ’ Messianic 
Secret no longer had the meaning for Matthew as in Mark. Das Messiasge- 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


51 


fitted not at all into the theological form into which Paul and 
John had cast the gospel. Jesus, as the great preacher of right¬ 
eousness, as the great sacrifice for the sins of the world, as the 
first fruits of the resurrection, as the \6yos, did not comport 
well with the idea of the unsuccessful leader of an expedition 
which sought and failed to dispossess the legal authorities of 
his nation, and who died as a penalty for his failure. Paul him¬ 
self deliberately attempted to divest the story of its human ele¬ 
ments. “We know no man after the flesh,” said he; “even 
though we have known Christ in the flesh, yet now we know 
him so no more.” Such we know to have been the general atti¬ 
tude of the early Christians, in whatever place we find their 
thoughts expressed. They cared little for the historical verities; 
their interest was in the future which confronted them, and in 
the spiritual significance of the words and acts of Jesus; and in 
such atmosphere the idea of such an unsuccessful attempt upon 
the part of Jesus faded away. 

With this attitude upon the part of the earliest Latin trans¬ 
lators, and with their demonstrated carelessness in translation, 
it is not difficult to see how some early one among them, not 
overly scholarly in his use of Greek, used conversor as an equiv¬ 
alent of 0wrp€</>co. The mere form of the words would suggest 
such an idea to any Latin speaking writer who was not inti¬ 
mately acquainted with the precise variations in the significance 
of the Greek. The con of the Latin is the exact equivalent of the 
<tvv of the Greek; likewise the versor of the Latin corresponds 

heimnis p. 152. Similarly pp. 159-160. W. Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene, Stephens 
translation, p. 263, thinks the process began before the gospels themselves were 
written: “At the time of the composition of the oldest of our gospels a dog¬ 
matic system had already been substituted for the historic treatment of events, 
and this had happened under conditions such that those who compiled the gos¬ 
pels found only fragmentary tradition before them.” The same idea, of changed 
perspective, may be found in Schweitzer, The Mystery, of the Kingdom of God, 
p. 247, though approached from a different assumption of the facts. 



52 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


very closely with the orpe<£co of the Greek. It was necessary 
only that he translate the word in accordance with the meanings 
of the parts of the two words rather than with the significance 
of the completed compounds. The ease with which such an er¬ 
ror could be made is shown by the fact, above referred to, that 
men even of the scholarship of Tregelles, Tischendorf and 
Horner have made it in our own times. Such an error, if it 
occurred, was of course induced by the fact that conversor not 
merely translated the component parts of avarpec^o) but also co¬ 
incided in meaning with the idea of the purpose of the trip to 
Jerusalem which had already become generally accepted. 

Now the Greek Manuscripts (X and B) which are probably 
copies from originals older than Lucian, (A. D. 300) retain 
(TvffTpecf) co. Apparently the avaaTpe<f)oo came into the Greek text 
with the recension made by Lucian, and through authority of that 
recension retained its place in the text from that time on domi¬ 
nant. Two observations concerning Lucian’s relations to such a 
change may be made. The first is, that according to Jerome, he did 
not hesitate to make modifications in the text if it suited his pur¬ 
pose. The second is that Lucian, prior to his work in Antioch, had 
lived in Rome and must have become familiar with the Latin 
forms of the Gospels. 10 He was of course familiar with the fact 
that in this passage some of the Latin texts had conversor. Now, 
since conversor made sense according to the current idea, and 
av(TTpe(f)u did not; and since conversor was the exact equivalent, 
in almost universal use, of avaarpe^co, for which it was used 
almost everywhere else in the New Testament; it was a perfectly 
simple procedure for him to make the substitution, assuming 
that the (jwTpefx* of the old Greek manuscript then before him, 

“Streeter —The Four Gospels pp. 116-117, emphasizes the possibility that 
Lucian may have used Roman mss. in his revision, though he overlooks the 
reason both for the revision itself and for the use of the Latin sources. See 
note 12 infra. Cf. Nestle, Introduction, 182, Note 2, also pp. 176-177. 



Jesus' JERUSALEM Expedition 


53 


was an error, for the reason that it was unintelligible. For mak¬ 
ing such a change he is scarcely subject to criticism; only by 
making it could he make the passage intelligible to himself and 
to the other Christians of his time, and the method of emenda¬ 
tion is one that has been used by textual critics always, even 
down to our own generation . 11 Emendation is never useful until 
the passage is unintelligible without it and becomes necessary 
whenever that occurs . 12 

Of such a course of procedure there is of course no definite 
evidence available. But such a supposition contradicts none of 

1:l This method was in use even more freely in those early days when the 
letter of the text was of comparatively small consequence to the Christian 
who was intent primarily upon the meaning to be drawn from it. Cf. Well- 
hausen, Einleitung in die drei Ersten Evangelien p. 2: “Die Loser (und 
Schreiber) der Evangelien achteten nicht so sehr auf den Buchstaben als auf 
den Sinn; und sie scheuten sich nicht ihr Interesse fur die Sache dadurch 
kundzageben dasz sie ihr wirkliches oder ihr gewiinschtes Verstandnis in den 
iiberlieferten Wortlaut eintriigen.” “The readers (and writers) of the Gospels 
were careful not so much of the letter as of the meaning; and they did not 
hesitate to reveal their interest in the matter by the fact that they thrust 
their actual or their desired understanding into the traditional language.” 

12 Lucian did his work in the midst of the persecution of Diocletian. 
Critics in general have probably underestimated the effect upon the New 
Testament text of Diocletian’s attempt to destroy all the New Testament 
manuscripts. Many churches were left entirely without Bibles or evangelia, 
all of which had to be reproduced. Large areas frequently must have been 
entirely stripped even of exemplars from which the new could be made. This 
fact is sufficient reason for the great influence of the Lucianic text; for 
great numbers of Christians it was the only text available. The lack of depend¬ 
able exemplars also will explain Lucian’s apparent willingness to make changes 
from the earlier forms and to draw upon Latin sources in doubtful places. 
The great textual puzzle D (Codex Bezae) becomes more readily understand¬ 
able if the. presumption is entertained that it is the product of necessity for 
a Greek Bible in one of these stripped areas, which could be produced only 
by translation from a Latin manuscript, the only manuscript left by the de¬ 
stroyers, supplemented by the retranslator’s memory of the Greek which he 
knew intimately but not always remembered exactly. If this is supposed to 
occur in some Syrian church, D becomes a quite reasonable text, for most of its 
peculiarities are readily explainable if it is a retranslation. Cf. Rendel Harris, 
A Study of Codex Bezae, p. 34: “We have a crucial case by which we show 
that to some extent the western text has latinized, though how far that influence 
extended is a great problem.” Foakes-Jackson and Lake, The Beginnings of 
Christianity III, p. ixxii: “This latinizing influence has produced a far-reaching 
effect on the Greek text, the precise range of which is difficult to determine.” 



54 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


the known facts, and does make explicable the reason for the 
appearance of the c Tvarptyu in the oldest Greeks and the ap- 
pearance of the dvaorp^co in the later ones. And it also indi¬ 
cates, what is obviously the case, that by the time of the third 
or fourth generation of Christians the story of the expedition 
up to Jerusalem with the multitudes running up into the thou¬ 
sands, with its carefully planned fulfillment of the Messianic 
prophecies and its attempt by force to take possession of the 
Tanple, to dispossess the Jewish government and to place at the 
head of the Jewish nation Jesus, who as the Messiah would 
bring in the Messianic kingdom, had vanished from the minds 
of the believers, 13 to remain hidden in the books, though in plain 
sight, for eighteen hundred years. And it leaves us full justi¬ 
fication for accepting the reading of ovaTptyu already given 
general credence by the authority of all our greatest modern 
textual critics, with this unavoidable corollary when taken with 
Mark 9:30: that the author of Matthew meant to indicate that 
Jesus and his followers engaged in Galilee in gathering together 
a group with a secret political and semi-military purpose savor¬ 
ing of conspiracy, a meaning which is only partially expressed 
by the best word yet suggested—Moffatt’s “mustering.” 14 


The peculiarities of the texts of Hesychius and Lucian, both of which are 
criticised by Jerome, probably had their origin in this fact that they were the 
product of necessity, and retained the limitations incident to the lack of ex¬ 
emplars, just as the mixed text of W is most easily explained by the necessity 
imposed upon its compilers of using various partial texts as exemplars. Sanders, 
The Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels, 139. 

13 Cf. Zumpt, Geburtsjahr Christi, p. 189 N. (quoted by Schurer 1, u, 
p. 139) : “The Church Fathers generally are wanting in all historical sense 
in the stating of the Gospel narrative.” . 

14 Keim ( Jesus of Nasara English Translation, IV, 303, note) who is 
among the very few modern commentators who have sensed the difficulty and 
the importance of the textual problem presented by this passage, approves the 
avarpkdxo reading but his approach is dominated by the preconception that a 
“gathering together” is not possible. “As we cannot reasonably (Jesus was 
chiefly at Paneas) talk about a collecting together, a sojourning, or a going 
up and down in Galilee, the word may at any rate—and the second announce¬ 
ment of the Passion best harmonizes with this—be translated to turn about, 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


55 


Among this group were the women mentioned later, who 
had been a part of his company earlier in the year, but who 
must have been left behind when he sought seclusion in Tyre. 
Others who now joined him were the mother of Jesus and his 
brethren, and the hundred and twenty from whom were chosen 
Joseph Bar Sabbas and Matthias, who had “companied with 
them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out 
among them .” 10 These and other Galileans in such numbers as 
to cause observers at a later date to identify anyone who spoke 
with a Galilean accent with Jesus , 16 formed a body sufficiently 
numerous to arouse the suspicion and antagonism of the first 
town of Samaria through which they sought to pass , 17 and to 
permit the withdrawal of seventy messengers to carry before 
them into Perea the advance announcement of their coming; and 
were added to continuously as they passed along the Jordan 
down towards Jericho. 

and then is the more difficult reading (The simple word often in Matthew 
vii, 6, xvi, 23, xviii, 3) If this be correct, then the author by one word ex¬ 
presses the meaning that the return journey had been commenced, and that 
it was completed in Galilee (instead of the country east of the Jordan).” The 
trouble with this suggestion is that there is no instance in either N. T. or 
EXX where owrpe^co is thus used as an equivalent of <rrpe0oo. Keim’s diffi¬ 
culty arises from the fact that, having no notion of the Messianic expedition, 
he eliminates the real meaning of the word before he begins his elucidation. 

15 Acts 1:15, 21-23. 

“Matt. 26:73. The participators in the ecstasy on the day of Pentecost 
apparently were all Galileans, therefore must have been part of this company. 
Acts 2:7. Apparently the group had grown into a body of many thousands be¬ 
fore it reached the city. Matt. 19:12; Luke 12:1, 14:25. Eisler, Jesus the 
Messiah, p. 481, 370n a , thinks it was originally about 150, and grew to 2000. 

17 Luke 9:51-53; 17:11. See infra, p. 78n la . 



V 

“And they that followed were afraid ” 

The first sentence of Mark 10:32 King James version reads: 

“And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus 
went before them: and they were amazed: and as they followed, they 
were afraid.” 

The meaning contained in this is identical with that found 
in the varying language of the previous great translators. Wyck- 
liffe, for example, has 

“And thei werun in the wey goyng up to Ierusalem. And Ihesus 
wente befor hem: and thei wondriden and foloweden and dreden.” 

The Cranmer Bible is identical with Wyckliffe except that 
for Wyckliffe’s 

“Thei wondriden” 
he substitutes 

“And they were amased.” 

Tyndale brings in almost the exact language subsequently 
used in the authorized version as follows: 

“And they were in the waye goying up to Ierusalem and Ihesus 
went before them: and they were amased, and as they folowed, they 
were afrayde.” 

The Geneva Bible adopted Tyndale’s language exactly. The 
Rheims Bible is very closely similar: 

“And they were in the way going up to Ierusalem: and Iesus 
went before them and they were astonid, and following were afraid.” 

The meaning of all these slightly varied translations is evi¬ 
dent and identical. Jesus and the Twelve were on their way to 
Jerusalem with Jesus going before the Twelve while the Twelve 
followed, amazed and afraid. This idea remained authorita¬ 
tive for this particular incident for all English readers until the 
Revised Version appeared in 1881. Then this verse took the 
following form: 

“And they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem: and Jesus 

( 56 ) 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 57 

was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed 
were afraid.” 

This is essentially followed by Goodspeed, 

“As they went on their way up to Jerusalem, Jesus walked ahead 
of them, and they were in dismay, and those who still followed were 
afraid.” 

And by Moffatt: 

“They were on the way up to Jerusalem, Jesus walking in front 
of them; the disciples were in dismay, and the company who followed 
were afraid.” 1 

Here we have an essentially different situation. As before, 
they were going to Jerusalem; but where in the previous trans¬ 
lation there had been only two elements,—Jesus and the follow¬ 
ing Twelve,—we have here a third element. They,—evidently 
still the Twelve,—were amazed ; 2 and in addition those that fol¬ 
lowed them were afraid. The amazement was characteristic of 
the Twelve and the fear was characteristic of the different group, 
which followed. 

These varying translations immediately become important 
to the thesis in hand. The revised version translation evidently 
gives vital support to the conclusion that instead of only Jesus 

1 Neither Goodspeed nor Moffatt is as faithful to the Greek as is the 
Revised Version, and each introduces a variation which changes the basic 
meaning slightly, but they agree in the essential matter discussed herein. 

2, E &ajj.PovvTo is not adequately expressed by “amazed” which R. V. car¬ 
ries over from the older versions. The word occurs only three times in the 
best texts of the New Testament, Mark 1:27 and 10:24 in addition to the 
present instance. In the two earlier cases it is well rendered by “amazed,” 
though both instances carry a broader meaning than is usually given to the 
word in modern usage. But in Acts 9 :6 included in T. R. and A. V. though 
omitted from R. V. and the modern editions of the Greek N. T., dappuv 
is used as a correlative with rpe/iuv and evidently carries with it the meaning 
of apprehension and fear. And in the Septuagint where it is used frequently, 
it always carries the same meaning. E. g. I Sam. 14:15, II Sam. 22:5, II 
K. 7:15, Dan. 8:17. Goodspeed and Moffatt are more accurate in translating 
“were in dismay,” though even that might be improved bv “were deeply ap¬ 
prehensive.” Wrede, das Messiasgeheimnis p. 275: “Denn ein dapfieia&ai 
uber etwas Schreckenerregendes, wie der Zug nach Jerusalem ist, ist von 
Furcht nicht weit entfernts.” “For a &ap.(3ei<r&ai because of something terri¬ 
fying, as the march upon Jerusalem is, is not far removed from fear.” 



58 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


and the Twelve in this procession to Jerusalem there was beside 
Jesus and the Twelve another group of people who were suffi¬ 
ciently attached to be known as followers: and sufficiently ad¬ 
vised as to what was going on to be afraid for some reason, in 
common with the Twelve. 

Examining the texts to determine the reason for these varied 
translations we find that the Textus Receptus, which was the 
Greek lying behind all the translations up to and including the 
authorized version of 1611, reads as follows: 

’Hcav 5e ev rfj 65a) ava^alrovres els T epocroXvpa- Kai rjv irpoayoiv 
avroi)s 6 ’ Irjcrovs , Kai edapfiodvro Kai aKokovdodvres etpofiovvTO. 

All the early critical editions, Lachmann, Mill, Scholz and 
Griesbach and Tischendorf’s early editions, retain the same read¬ 
ing. But beginning with Tregelles, who was the first to utilize 
X and B, we find the last three words of this Greek sentence 
substituted by the following: ol 5e aKoXovdodvres e(j)o(3ovvTo. From 
that time on all critical editions, including Tischendorf’s eighth 
edition, Westcott and Hort, the revisers’ text, Nestle and Von 
Soden, agree in the Tregelles rendering, ol 5e aKoXov&ovvres 
e<f>o(3ovvro. On this sentence there is no longer any difference of 
opinion; the text is universally recognized to be correctly repre¬ 
sented by NB and to be correctly translated by the Revised Ver¬ 
sion. 

The significance of this changed translation and its text, 
however, has not yet worked its way into the consciousness of 
students of the life of Jesus. The change of the elements of the 
Jesus group from two to three is obvious; but the idea of a sec¬ 
tion of attached followers in addition to the Twelve does not 
fit into what is still the current notion of the nature of the trip, 
so the contradiction, though sometimes recognized, is not yet re¬ 
solved. 

Swete, for example, (The Gospel according to Mark p. 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


59 


233) recognizes the significance of the language, but describes 
the situation thus: 

“The Lord walked in advance of the Twelve with a solemnity 
and determination which foreboded danger. His manner struck awe 
in the minds of the Twelve who were beginning at length to anticipate 
an impending disaster; whilst the rest of the company, the crowd who 
usually hung upon the Lord’s footsteps, or his fellow travelers on 
their way to the Passover, were conscious of a vague fear. There 
was risk of a real panic, and the Lord therefore checks his course 
until the Twelve have come up to him.” 

This interpretation very obviously fails to give full effect to 
oi cucoXov&ovvTes . “Those who followed” does not find full 
equivalent in “fellow travelers,” or “the crowd who usually hung 
upon the Eord’s footsteps.” As pointed out by Turner, infra, 
irpoaywv finds a contrasting correlative in oi de 6lko\ov#ovvt€s 
and requires the latter to be translated by “those who followed” 
or “the followers.” 

Neither is it legitimate to translate e<f>ol3odvTo as “a vague 
fear.” The word signifies a definite attitude of fear, of appre¬ 
hension of danger. The sentence is to be taken as a whole; the 
same factors which caused the amazement or, more accurately, 
the deep apprehension, of the Twelve, caused the positive fear of 
those who followed. All were affected by the dangers which 
confronted them in their early arrival at the capital city, where 
the authorities were practically certain to be hostile to them. 
A common understanding of conditions led to a mental atti¬ 
tude very similar. The insufficiency of Swete’s elucidation is 
evident. 

Turner (The Study of the New Testament, Page 62) rec¬ 
ognizes the difficulty much more clearly than Swete but sug¬ 
gests a much more violent solution: 

“There is a serious difficulty in the exegesis of these verses as 
they stand. It is ordinarily supposed that mention is made of our 
Lord, of the Twelve, and of a vague mass of followers. But there 
are two objections, both of them decisive, to such an interpretation. 

On the one hand, the whole story of the ascent to Jerusalem and the 


60 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


arrival there seems to imply that it was only the few disciples whom 
He was educating in closest intimacy who now made up His com¬ 
pany : on the other hand, the verbs irpoayeiv and anoXovdeiv are in 
this Gospel strictly correlative, as in xi, 9, ol Trpoayovres nai oi 
aKoXovdovvres, and SO xiv 28 (xvi 7) xpod&o i>p.as ds ttjv TaXiXaLav 
means of course ‘I will precede’ and you shall follow. Oi 5e 
aKoXov&ovvTes can therefore, only refer back to Tpoayuv and must 
mean ‘Jesus went before them and they (the disciples) followed. So 
far all is clear: but i&apfiovvTo is unexplained, unless we accept a 
suggestion made some years ago, but never, I believe put into print, 
and suppose that the Evangelist wrote kdapfidro. If it was the Mas¬ 
ter on whom, in anticipation of Gethsemane (xiv 33), this shuddering 
awe fell, we can understand how He wished to be alone, and how the 
disciples, as they followed at a little distance, ‘were afraid.’ ” 

This solution solves merely by denying entirely the third 
element in the group and offering to repeat the age-old process 
of changing the Greek to correspond with the necessity of the 
preconceived notion. In other words Dr. Turner thinks that 
since it was impossible that there could have been a company of 
followers, the Greek, which clearly indicates such a group, must 
be wrong. 

Quite similar in its even greater willingness to do violence 
to a text incomprehensible in the light of a preconceived notion 
of the situation, is the proposal of Wrede (Das Messiasgeheirn- 
nis, p. 96) : 

“It seems to me not too bold to propose an emendation here. The 
/ecu kdapi3 ovvto is to be eliminated; it may also be conceivable that 
the text originally read: 

‘Jesus was going before, but they as they followed, went in 
amazement ( k&apPovvTo instead of e<t>o^ovvTo ).’ In any event the text 
as it stands is not endurable. 

But even if we keep it, the essential thing is clear. In any event 
the thought lies to the front that the disciples were seized with amaze¬ 
ment or bewilderment, because they saw Jesus marching before them 
on the way to Jerusalem. That can be no unimportant observation. 
Undoubtedly, since the prophecy follows, it is evident that here mem¬ 
ory of a genuine scene does not lie at bottom. Should the literally 
conceived, quite unimportant circumstances of the scene be historical, 
when its true content—precisely the prophecy—is unhistorical ?” 

For Wrede, as for Turner, the situation created by the def¬ 
initely authentic text is incomprehensible in the light of his pre- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


61 


conception of Jesus’ purpose and method in going to Jerusalem. 
Wrede, deeply attached to his own thesis, that the secret of the 
suffering Messiah is the key to unlock all the other Gospel se¬ 
crets, has no need for the organized crowd of followers and is 
perfectly willing either to mar the text, or to fall back on the 
ancient solution eliminated by the results of modern textual criti¬ 
cism, or even to throw out the whole difficult incident as un- 
historical. 3 

This method of solution proposed by Wrede and Dr. Turner 
sheds clear light upon the probable process by which the varia¬ 
tion in the text itself came to pass. There is no longer any doubt 

3 Cf. Loisy, Les Bvangiles Synoptiques, p. 232: “Si les disciples et l’en- 
tourage de Jesus craignent, c’est parce qu’ils ont le sentiment du danger auquel 
le Sauveur s’expose en allant & Jerusalem. Toujours est-il que les disciples, 
ne sachant pas trop ce qui va se passer, redoutent l’avenir mysterieux dont 
ils s’approchent maintenant. Le Sauveur, dans la pleine assurance de sa mis¬ 
sion, marchait a leur tete. C’est lui qui les emmene a Jerusalem, et l’on dirait 
qu’ils ne le suivent qu’ a regret. En dehors des disciples, il y avait un assez 
grand nombre de personnes qui s’etaient attachies aux pas de Jesus pour l’en- 
tendre, car on voit tres bien qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une caravane de pelerins, et 
qui partageaient plus ou moins l’inquietude de ses disciples. Peut-etre ces gens 
se faisaientils une idee plus juste du peril que Jesus affrontait, et n’en etaient- 
ils que plus effrages.—Matthieu et Luc auront omis ces details, dont ils ne 
voyaient pas la portee, et dont ils etaient plutot choques.” “If the disciples 
and the attendants of Jesus were afraid, it is because they appreciated the 
danger to which the Savior was exposing himself in going to Jerusalem. The 
disciples, not understanding what was coming to pass, dreaded the mysterious 
future which they were then approaching. The Savior, in the full assurance 
of his mission, marched at their head. It was he who was leading them to 
Jerusalem, and one would say that they did not follow except with regret. 
Apart from the disciples there was a quite large number of persons who were 
attached to the steps of Jesus to listen to him, for one sees quite well that 
it did not act as a caravan of pilgrims, and who participated more or less 
in the uneasiness of his disciples. Perhaps these people had a more accurate 
idea of the peril which Jesus confronted, and were therefore more dismayed.” 
This idea is very similar to Swete’s notion of a “crowd which usually hung 
upon the Lord’s footsteps,” and is similarly inadequate to express the relation 
of leader and follower which is involved in the rjv -irpoayuv avrovs and the 
ot 8k anoXovdovres . Montefiore (The Synoptic Gospels, I 249) also thinks that 
“one must assume that in addition to the Twelve there were others who ac¬ 
companied Jesus upon his fateful path,” though he seems to favor Bartlett’s 
approval of Dr. Turner’s attempt at emendation. 



62 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


as to what the original text must have read. The decision of 
our modern scholars is based upon the reading of X B C L, 1 
and others. Textus Receptus is based upon A, part of the old 
Latin, the Vulgate, the Syriac. The weight of authority is over¬ 
whelming in favor of the reading now accepted. 

In such a search for the process by which the change took 
place, a look at the Old Latin is especially interesting and in¬ 
structive. In the essential clause, k reads: 

“Fuerunt autem in via ascendentes Hiersolima et admirabantur 
qui sequebantur ilium.” 

q reads: 

“Brant autem in via ascendentes Hierosolyma et praecedebat illos 
Ihesus et pavebant et sequentes timebant.” 
ff however, reads for the second part of the sentence: 

“Et praecedebat illos Ihesus et pavebant sequentes 
b shortens it still more, giving this part of the sentence: 

“et pracedebat eos Ihesus et pavebant 
c agrees with k and a with b. 

These variations are of course additional evidence of the 
extraordinary carelessness and lack of fidelity to the Greek which 
characterize the early Latin translations. Of the entire list q is 
the only one which follows the Greek with reasonable accuracy. 4 
All the others leave out some essential element of the original 
text and show how completely the idea of the third element in 
Jesus’ group had dropped out of the minds of even the very 
early Christians. 

In q we have an accurate translation of the Greek, but even 
in this instance the necessary difference between the Latin and 
;the Greek languages in the use of the article makes the meaning 
indefinite. The Latin has no article, while in the Greek the ar¬ 
ticle is used very much as in English. In translating the Latin 
alike into English or Greek the question of whether the article 

4 Jerome in his Vulgate takes the q text except that he uses stupebant 
for pavebant. In their essential features q and Vulgate are identical. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


63 


is to be used or not must be determined by inference; sometimes 
it cannot be answered positively. “Et sequentes timebant” con¬ 
sequently can be translated in either of two ways, depending on 
whether the article is supplied or not, as “sequentes” could in 
this connection be either adjective or pronominal. In the former 
case it would be translated: 

“as they followed they were afraid.” 

and would be represented in Greek by the equivalent Kai 
aKoXovdodvres e(j)o(3ovvTo. In the second case it would be trans¬ 
lated 

“those who followed were afraid,” 

and would be the equivalent of oi 5e aKo\ov$odvTes £(f)o(3ovi'To. In 
the first instance “sequentes” as an adjective would be descrip¬ 
tive of the (understood) subject of pavebant; in the second in¬ 
stance “sequentes” as a pronominal would be the subject of 
“timebant ” 

Now, observing that ff and c, though eliminating a part of 
the sentence, in this particular clause agree with q, in the use 
of “sequentes” it becomes easy to see that this was the most 
usual form of the Latin text, and how Lucian in making his 
revision could have inserted a change of the ancient Greek texts 
which prevailed for more than fifteen hundred years thereafter. 
As the idea that a group of closely attached followers accom¬ 
panied Jesus and the Twelve had been entirely lost among the 
Christians of that time, Lucian of course included, it was im¬ 
possible for Lucian to interpret the three-section Greek into his 
two-section idea. So he used the method of Dr. Turner and 
Wrede. Remembering the Latin form, or more likely having it 
before him in the q form, he turned its familiar meaning into 
its Greek equivalent by the simple device of dropping the ar¬ 
ticle which stood in the older texts, and which upon his view 
of the meaning, must have appeared to be an unjustified inser- 


64 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


tion. Elimination of the article forced the substitution of /cat 
for de, no longer usable. 

To return to the meaning of the passage, it is obvious that 
giving the correct text its normal meaning, recognizing in this 
group which was moving into Jerusalem three elements, the lead¬ 
er Jesus, the Twelve and the great mass of followers, eliminates 
all the difficulties. 5 It is not only easy to believe, but entirely 
impossible to doubt that as this group, embarked upon a mission 
of intense importance and of the highest personal hazard, ap¬ 
proached their object, where they were sure to meet the great 
test within the next two or three days, a great apprehension fell 
upon them. The feeling was not any vague awe or indefinite 
fear, but the very definite and deep apprehension of personal 
danger which overhung them as they prepared to enter the capi¬ 
tal of their nation and to confront its authorities with a proc¬ 
lamation of the coming Kingdom, a kingdom which was to re¬ 
place the present one and all connected with it. Quite justly the 
Twelve were oppressed with apprehension, as they contemplated 
the approaching collision, and those who followed, less com- 

5 Burkitt, Jesus Christ, pp. 36, 37, adds yet another element, making four: 
Jesus, the Twelve, the disciples “as distinct from what Mark calls the multi¬ 
tude,” and the multitude itself. These disciples other than the Twelve he thinks 
were relatively few in number, but “enough when collected together to make 
noticeable the entry of their Master into Jerusalem and, what is more important, 
to back up his doings in the Temple Courts. * * * The existence of this class 
must be remembered, to explain the first doings of Jesus in Jerusalem and the 
attitude of the authorities there to him.” But this distinction is entirely super¬ 
fluous. Mark was repeating Peter, who drew a sharp distinction between the 
Twelve and the other followers, who were to him “the multitude.” And the 
number necessary to explain the events in Jerusalem mentioned by Burkitt 
could not have been small. No handful could have “stirred all Jerusalem” or 
effected the expulsion of the merchants, bankers and officials from the Temple. 
Mark uses the terms “the disciples” and ‘“the Twelve” practically interchange¬ 
ably. The multitude, which when it first appears in his story, was the mass of 
listeners who thronged about him, had by this time become a mass of followers, 
varying in attachment from light and temporary allegiance which was shattered 
by the failure to hold the Temple to the definite, permanent group who continued 
together after the crucifixion, and became the one hundred and twenty who 
elected Matthias as recorded in Acts 1, 15-26. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


65 


pletely dominated by the magnificent confidence of their leader, 
were full of the fear from which Jesus had from time to time 
sought to free them. (Luke 12:4-5; 32; Mark 8:35-38). It is 
evidently impossible that anyone not absolutely integrated with 
the expedition itself could have participated in such a feeling of 
dread, just as it was the most natural thing in the world that 
everyone connected with it must have had it in some degree. 
And such a touch as this, with its profound conformity with 
the facts of human nature at the same time that it raises in¬ 
superable contradictions with notions purely religious in the 
traditional sense, confirms our confidence in the solid historical 
trustworthiness of the synoptic story, instead of justifying a 
doubt such as that expressed by Wrede. 


VI 

Jesus, Rome and the Pharisees 

The essence of the Messianic hope was the expectation that 
foreign control would be removed from Israel. Indeed the whole 
Messianic complex grew out of the resistance of a people who 
relied firmly upon the especial care of their divinity against the 
unfavorable and almost unendurable conditions produced by a 
domination which they Were unable to shake off. Every one who 
hoped for Messiah hoped that he should redeem Israel, that is, 
that he would restore the Kingdom. 

The Messianic ideas of Jesus must have carried in them 
some provision for the removal of the control of Rome, the 
power against which the Messianic faith was at that time di¬ 
rected, otherwise he could not have functioned as a Messianic 
leader. 

A recent very penetrating study 1 emphasizes the fact that 
the public utterances of Jesus taught nonresistance as the proper 
attitude towards the great empire under which his Jewish hear¬ 
ers writhed. This view is correct so far as it goes, but it does 
not go far enough. Such an idea and such teaching do not com¬ 
plete the attitude of Jesus towards this, the controlling problem 
of his day and his life. That he did teach nonresistance towards 
Rome is incontrovertible; Pilate determined that fact when Jesus 
was on trial before him. But this did not exhaust Jesus’ attitude 
toward this matter. 

Attempted solutions of this problem from the historical 
point of view, have taken two general directions. One has its 
chief exponent in Schweitzer, who finds the total explanation in 


1 Simkhovitch, Toward the Understanding of Jesus, in particular chap¬ 
ters 5 and 6. 

(66) 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


67 


the eschatological outlook of Jesus. The other is well repre¬ 
sented by Simkhovitch and his type; these would make Jesus a 
practical leader of his people, who resisted the powerful popular 
tendency toward violence and found a solution of their prob¬ 
lems in a system of ethics, especially in the purely intellectual 
answer of nonresistance. 2 Both are correct to a degree and both 
are wrong, for each ignores the truth contained in the other view. 

The activity of Jesus had its origin in a purely eschatolog¬ 
ical outlook. This view looked forward to a time when God 
should come in person and do for his people the work which 
they could not do for themselves. The prophets before Jesus had 
worked out the details of a great epochal event in which by mi¬ 
raculous and terrible means God would wipe out of his world all 
those things which were offensive to him, chief of which would 
be that nation which was oppressing his chosen people. Over and 
over the prophets had foretold this great event and beyond doubt 
it was this event which he had in mind when he took up the 
burden of John’s message to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven 
was at hand. The responsibility of announcing this event and 
of preparing Israel for it appears to be what he undertook when 
he became convinced that he was the “beloved son” at the fords 
of Jordan. 3 

Whether the change occurred as a result of the resistance 
which he met both from the government of Herod and from 
the representatives of the Jewish government at Jerusalem, and 
the unexpected postponement of the event which he had been 

2 Foakes-Jackson and Lake {The Beginnings of Christianity, I, 291) also 
sense the idea of non-resistance to Rome only, as an essential element. in 
Jesus’ teaching: “The true answer is * * * to be found * * * in accentuating 
the fact that the ‘non-resistant’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount deals 
with the line of conduct to be observed towards foreign oppressors and 
violence from without.” 

3 Harlow, Jesus the Man, Chapter III and note. 



68 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


preaching, it is impossible to say, 4 but following Caesarea Phil¬ 
ippi Jesus’ outlook ceased to be entirely eschatological. No long¬ 
er did it seem to him possible to wait quietly for God to fulfill 
his times and his promises, but he grasped the necessity of action 
upon his own part. He now realized that he must go to Jeru¬ 
salem and replace the evil administrators of the nation, whose 
failure to conform to the law was causing the postponement of 
the Day of the Lord. He admitted not only to the Twelve, but 
to himself, that he was Messiah in every sense, and must func¬ 
tion as such, and he deliberately set himself to become the head 
of his nation. That he taught meanwhile the only way of pres¬ 
ent safety for his people, the necessity of nonresistance to the 
overwhelming power which oppressed them, is apparent, but it 
is also apparent that he did not abandon his eschatological ex¬ 
pectations; expressions of these were repeated again and again 
during the last week of his life. 

The problem of Rome, then, was left where it was when 
he began his ministry. As he saw it the fulfillment of the King- 

4 Cf. Harlow, Jesus the Man, Chapter X. That much discussed passage, 
Matt. 11:12, is an indication of his feeling about the violent opposition to the 
movement begun by John, which he had made his own: “From the days of John 
the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and men of 
violence take it by force.” (R. V.) This translation does not fully express the 
meaning of ap-ira^ovat. The sentence might be rendered: “From the days of John 
the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence; and violent men 
snatch it away by force.” That is, beginning with the arrest of John the Baptist, 
violent men—Herod and his servants, and the Jerusalem Pharisees,—have used 
violence on every manifestation of the coming kingdom, have prevented it from 
coming in, have snatched it like harpies, from those who have accepted it, and 
would have entered into it. (Matt. 23:13)—This verse does not belong in its 
present location. Luke’s parallel passage is placed in entirely different context 
and time. In Matthew it is not entirely consecutive, for it is placed in the 
time of John’s own life, is part of a discourse arising from a question of John 
himself, still alive; and the expression “from the days of John the Baptist 
until now” is therefore really meaningless. The statement was probably made 
at a later time, was available to the author of Matthew and to Luke as an 
isolated saying, and is consequently misplaced by both. It could well express 
Jesus’ own idea as to why the kingdom failed to come in as he first expected, 
and could be one of the reasons he gave to himself and others why he must 
himself take action to bring the kingdom into being. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


69 


dom would remove Rome, would restore Israel. God alone could 
do that, and it was foolish for the weakened Jews to attempt to 
interpose their feeble efforts to produce this effect before God 
was ready for it. The practical fact was that before this new 
kingdom could come, Israel itself must be made fit. The proph¬ 
ets had taught that when Israel fulfilled the law, Messiah would 
come. He, therefore, in order to remove the Roman control, 
sought to bring the nation into the condition which it must ac¬ 
quire before God would redeem his promise. This he sought to 
accomplish first by preaching the doctrine of personal righteous¬ 
ness; next by attempting to remove from control of the affairs 
of the nation, those unrighteous persons whose life and whose 
works stood in the way of the fulfillment of the promise. “Ex¬ 
cept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the 
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise see the Kingdom of 
Heaven.” But when this righteousness was secured in the per¬ 
sonal lives of his followers and by such conduct of the affairs 
of Israel that it might meet with divine approval, by a cleansed 
Temple, by a complete national submission to the will of God, 
then should follow that hoped for divine event which should 
wipe out the oppressor and bring in the golden day of the Mes¬ 
siah. 

This then seems to have been the attitude of Jesus towards 
Rome, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” “Re¬ 
sist not the evil 5 thing.” Submit to its exaction: “If he will take 
away thy cloak give him thy coat also.” “If he will compel thee 

5 The t# Trovripti of Matt. 5:39 and rod irovrjpov of 6:13 are best under¬ 
stood as forms of to irovrjpov, the evil thing, the wicked foreign government, 
rather then as parts of 6 irovrjpos, the evil one, the devil. Matt. 5:39, in par¬ 
ticular, comes in the midst of a discussion of the proper way to deal with 
the Roman oppressors. Matt. 6:13 is a prayer for escape: “lead, us not into 
bitter trial, but deliver us from the evil thing.” They were not in the hands 
of the devil; they were in the hands of Rome and from Rome they sought 
to be delivered. Similarly in the parable of the tares, Matt. 13 :24-30 and its 
interpretation, 13 :37-43, rd £i£avia, oi viol rod irovrjpov, are most likely the sons 



70 Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 

to go one mile, go with him two.” But at the same time, render 
“unto God the things that are God’s” and he will “deliver us 
from the evil thing.” Fulfill God’s law, make his house and his 
nation fit for him, and in due time he will come and take care 
of the evil which now overshadows the nation.* 

The correlative of this attitude towards Rome was his at¬ 
titude towards the Pharisees and scribes and other Jewish au¬ 
thorities. Against these was directed the resistance which he 
wisely counselled his followers not to use towards all-powerful 
Rome. They were those who had abused their trust, the hus¬ 
bandmen who had refused their lord his fruits, invited guests 
who had refused to come to the feast, the enemies who would 
not that he should reign over them. They, by their violent abuses, 
their unwillingness to conform to the spirit of the law, were 
preventing the coming of the promised Kingdom. The three par¬ 
ables mentioned show clearly how he reacted toward them. 
“These mine enemies that would not that I should reign over 
them, bring hither and slay them before me.” “He will come and 
destroy those husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto oth¬ 
ers.” “The king was wroth; and he sent his armies and destroyed 
those murderers and burned their city.” The bitterness towards 
the ruling elements in Jerusalem which was manifest in John 
the Baptist and was probably characteristic of much of the com¬ 
mon population, was shared by Jesus. 

Against these his expedition was directed. As Messiah he 

of the evil thing, the servants of Rome, the opposite of the sons of the king¬ 
dom, and the parable is a repetition of his teaching of non-resistance to the 
oppressors, with whom God will deal adequately in the great day of his 
coming. Quite evidently tov Trovrjpov of 13 :38 and 6 5ia/3oAos of 13 :39 are not 
the same person. 

*M. Goguel expresses the same view of Jesus’ attitude towards Rome; 
as quoted by C. G. Montefiore, The Beginnings of Christianity, Hibbert Journal, 
Jan. 1932, p. 305: “Ce sont la, pour J£sus, des choses qui disparaitront d’elles 
m§mes quand Dieu etablira son regne.” “For Jesus there are certain things which 
will automatically disappear when God shall establish his Kingdom.” 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


71 


sought to replace them and their misrule by his own authority 
and a direction which would speedily bring in the promised 
Kingdom. Against them he did not hesitate to use the violence 
which he advised not to be used against Rome.* Though his fol¬ 
lowers were practically unarmed* probably the result of his 
eschatological expectations and his confidence that God would 
furnish all the force necessary, at the crucial moment he would 
have been willing to appeal to the sword had he received suitable 
response from his followers. 6 In other words, he came into Jeru¬ 
salem leading a revolution, not against Rome, but against the 
authorities of his own nation. 7 

This purpose and his realization of its danger lay behind 
those repeated warnings to his followers that he must meet the 
antagonism of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and his 
anticipation that he must suffer at their hands. Its attempted 
realization and its temporary success caused the unrelenting ha¬ 
tred of those whom he sought to dispossess, and produced the 
strange phenomenon of the surrender of a Messianic leader to 
Rome by his own nation. Realization that Jesus taught submis- 


*Cf. Kirsopp Lake, Landmarks of Early Christianity, p. 25: “the ‘non- 
resistant’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount deals with the line of conduct 
to be observed towards foreign oppressors and violence from without. The 
sacerdotal money-changers and sellers of doves in the Temple were not the 
‘oppressors of Israel.’ Israel was called on to suffer under Roman rule, and 
the righteous to endure violence at the hands of the wicked for that was the 
will of God, who in his own good time would shorten the evil days. But the 
manipulation of the sacrificial system as a means of plundering the pions was 
a sin of Israel itself, against which protest and force were justified.” 

6 Luke 22:35-38. 

’Schweitzer (The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 86) holds such a 
view is impossible: “Jesus, however, must have thought either eschatologically 
or uneschatologically, but not both together.” Yet it is obvious that if he 
thought eschatologically at all he must have thought both eschatologically 
and uneschatologically, for much of his teaching was actually practical and 
ethical, and much of his life necessarily conformed to practical considerations. 
The complex of the two was exactly what occurred: he acted practically, 
and waited confidently for the fulfillment of his eschatological expectations as 
a completion of the whole problem. 



72 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


sion to Rome at the same time that he was engaged in struggle 
with the Jerusalem leaders who were personally so hateful to 
Pilate, gave him that officer's approval and a kindly interest that 
would have saved him had the unexpected complication with 
Herod not intervened. 

That this purpose was shared to any substantial extent by 
his followers, or even understood by them, is doubtful in the 
extreme. So far as can be guessed from the limited references 
on this point, the chief expectation of the crowd which accom¬ 
panied him was the usual Messianic expectation, that the hated 
Roman control was immediately to be replaced by the Kingdom 
of God in a material sense. 8 Not one of them seemed to com¬ 
prehend his oft repeated warning that conflict with the Jerusalem 
authorities was unavoidable. Far along in the expedition the 
Twelve themselves were eagerly engaged in debate over who 
would rank highest in the new kingdom, these discussions at 
times becoming almost if not quite acrimonious. Insight into 
the purposes and understanding of the crowd is too meager to 
permit definiteness of statement, but there is every reason to be¬ 
lieve that the multitudes which rallied to him on the way down 
the valley of the Jordan and which marched with him into Jeru¬ 
salem to the chant “Blessed is the kingdom that cometh, the king¬ 
dom of our father David,” hoping that “it was he that should 
redeem Israel,” confidently expected that through him the Roman 
was to be expelled and that he was immediately to become the 
head of the restored kingdom of the Jews. 

Significant in this connection is the fact that we hear no 
more of the crowds following him after the day of the debate 
in the Temple concerning the tribute. It is generally accepted 

8 Note particularly such passages as Matt. 20:20-22; Luke 24:19-21. It 
is worthy of note that one of the Twelve was Simon the Zealot, evidently one 
of those extremists who were willing to go to any length to destroy Roman 
domination, so frequently and fully described by Josephus. It is altogether 
unlikely that he was the only one of that type in the crowd. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


73 


that his answer to that crafty inquiry of the emissaries of Herod, 
which was obviously intended either to embroil him with the 
Roman governor or to break his influence with the people, suc¬ 
ceeded in avoiding both dangers, but succeeding events add great¬ 
ly to the natural probability that it was in fact the rock upon 
which his attempt broke. Even though, as Luke says, the Herodi- 
ans and Pharisees were “not able to take hold of the saying be¬ 
fore the people” immediately as they had expected, it is difficult 
to see how such a crowd could have been held by any leader who 
openly counselled the payment of the tribute, no matter by what 
trick of speech. Disappointment at such an attitude goes far 
toward explanation of the revulsion of feeling which caused the 
betrayal by Judas, and of the bitterness of the Jerusalem mob 
the next day. His followers must have felt betrayed when he 
apparently counselled submission to that power, for the removal 
of which they had undergone the hardship and the personal dan¬ 
ger of such an expedition. Though his crowd, either by support¬ 
ing action or by the sheer threat of its numbers, must have aided 
in his attack on the Temple occupants, it is not unlikely that 
he alone understood the unavoidable necessity of his contest with 
the Jewish authorities, the importance of their removal from 
control in order that the nation might return to God and the 
expected kingdom thus come in, and the necessity of non-resist¬ 
ance to Rome while these things were coming to pass and until 
that day and that hour, unknown even to the angels in heaven, 
when God’s time should be utterly fulfilled. 9 

8 This discussion ignores the view originated by Reimarus and last worked 
out fully by Eisler, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist according to Flavius 
Josephus, etc., that Jesus’ movement upon Jerusalem was a direct attempt 
against Rome itself. The evidence offered in support of that view is entirely 
insufficient, and is completely neutralized by the reply to the tribute question 
in the Temple. No leader of an attack upon Rome could possibly have made 
such a reply. The idea that Jesus expected the iiltimate elimination of Rome 
is sound, is fundamental, and Reimarus should be accepted to that extent.. Cf. 
Wellhausen, Binleitung, 2d Ed., p. 83: Bizu einum gewissen Grade konnte 



74 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Reimarus Recht haben.” “Up to a certain point Reimarus may be right.” That 
point is certainly far this side of an armed attempt against Rome. Pilate tried 
Jesus on that charge and with all the facts before the court found him innocent; 
certainly no one in recent centuries has had access to additional information 
which would justify a reversal of Pilate. The view of Wellhausen in his later 
years (1912) is very close to that of this chapter. Binleitung, 2d Ed., pp. 82-83: 
“Although Jesus was first glorified into the Christian Messiah as a consequence 
of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, nevertheless in his lifetime he could have 
been held by Peter and the others to have been the Jewish Messiah, and unde¬ 
niably that occurred. * * * One has no right to consider the mocking homage 
of the soldiery a fabrication, or to doubt that the charge pursuant to which 
Pilate carried out the sentence of death, is correctly expressed by ‘The King of 
the Jews.’ Of the Palms incident at least this much is certain, that the Galilean 
escort of Jesus enthusiastically acclaimed him on the Mount of Olives in the 
expectation that he would now establish the kingdom of David. How he him¬ 
self responded to that is difficult to determine. He permitted himself in Jerusa¬ 
lem to be addressed by his disciples as Teacher and not as Lord. At the hearing 
before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate his silence was impressive; if he secretly 
knew himself as actually Messiah, he did it nevertheless not freely and frankly, 
and doubts that it completely occurred cannot be suppressed. The question of 
the Jewish officers concerning his authority he adroitly and carefully evaded. 
Yet he must have given his enemies some tangible occasion for the complaint 
before Pilate. True, he planned no uprising against the Romans, he had no 
purpose to free his people from the foreign domination; but from the yoke of 
the Priest and the Scribe—yes. For this purpose he proceeded perhaps not 
solely as a teacher, but also as an agitator, and within himself claimed for 
himself the messianic right to rule, or at least he created the appearance that 
he did. At the cleansing of the Temple he did not shrink from the use of force; 
his disciples had weapons and sought to use them when they were surprised. 
These traces are still contained in the gospel narrative, others may have been 
obliterated.” Some of them are emphasized in this study. 


VII 

’AXX’ ov be 'Epwbrjs. 

The idea that Jesus was the Lamb of God, the blameless 
sacrifice, the innocent substitute who, without sin in himself, took 
upon himself the iniquities of all men, necessarily precludes any 
idea of actual guilt upon his part; and inference has led the 
Christian world to assume that he not only could not possibly 
have been guilty of any actual violation of the law, but was 
never legally condemned by any governmental authority. This 
assumption has led to a serious misinterpretation of the relation 
which Herod Antipas bore to the trial and execution of Jesus, 
and even to a direct mistranslation of the Greek in the story of 
his final hearing before Herod and Pilate. 

The classic understanding of the story as told in the first 
twenty-five verses of the twenty-third chapter of Luke is as fol¬ 
lows: The chief priests carried Jesus before Pilate, the Roman 
governor, accusing him of offenses against the Roman law. Af¬ 
ter examining him, Pilate announced that he was guilty of none 
of the things with which he was charged. The persistence of 
the priests in their accusation that he was misleading the people 
from Galilee to Jerusalem, called the attention of Pilate to the 
fact that Jesus was a Galilean and he immediately sent him to 
Herod, who as the tetrarch of Galilee had jurisdiction of all of¬ 
fenses committed in Galilee and who happened to be in Jeru¬ 
salem. With his accusers Jesus was taken before Herod and his 
officers, who after seeking to see some miracle from Jesus, made 
light of him as a person of no consequence, but nevertheless 
found him guilty of no crime and sent him back to Pilate after 
in mocking jest arraying him in gorgeous garments. Pilate there¬ 
upon tried anew to convince the chief priests of the innocence 
of Jesus, citing the action of Herod as additional evidence of 

(75) 


76 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


that innocence. Accordingly he offered to scourge Jesus as a 
concession to the Jewish leaders and then to release him as a 
gift to the people. The people, however, led on by the chief 
priests, refused to accept Jesus, demanded their own favorite, 
Barabbas, and made such a disturbance that Pilate was afraid 
not to accede to their desire and finally crucified Jesus in order 
to placate the crowd. 

This idea misses the spirit of the whole transaction. Not 
only does it make of the proceedings of a Roman court a matter 
of no consequence, that could be set aside at will; of the Roman 
governor, Pilate, a weakling who was unable to resist the de¬ 
mands of the multitude, and who set aside his own judicial de¬ 
cision for no better reason than the demands of a mob that he 
crucify; of Herod a prince with no motive but a vulgar curios¬ 
ity, who, in dealing with one of his own subjects found him 
innocent of wrongdoing, but nevertheless, after thus finding him 
innocent, cruelly abused him, made bitter sport of him, and de¬ 
liberately returned him into the danger from which he had for 
a moment been rescued by being sent to him; of the chief priests 
and the Jerusalem multitude a political factor, powerful enough 
to overwhelm the purpose of a Roman governor, and in the 
very presence of a force of soldiers found many times by test 
ample to control Jerusalem even in turbulent times, able to 
compel the governor to set aside the verdict of his own court 
and, instead, to send an innocent man to an undeserved death. 
Not only does it do all these things, all of which are contrary 
to the known facts of human nature and of the situation as it 
then existed in Jerusalem, but it so misconceives the meaning of 
the transaction that it causes the translation of a Greek passage 
in a sense precisely opposite to that which the Greek itself natural¬ 
ly requires. 

To set the matter out in convenient form, herewith follows 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


77 


the translation of the first twenty-five verses of Luke 23, as 
given in the American Revised Version, paralleled with the same 
passage retranslated without the domination of the exegetical con¬ 
ception above set forth. 


Revised Version 

23. 1. And the whole company of 
them rose up, and brought him be¬ 
fore Pilate. 2. And they began to 
accuse him, saying, We found this 
man perverting our nation, and for¬ 
bidding to give tribute to Caesar, and 
saying that he himself is Christ a 
king. 3. And Pilate asked him, say¬ 
ing, Art thou the king of the Jews? 
And he answered him and said, Thou 
sayest. 4. And Pilate said unto the 
chief priests and the multitudes, I 
find no fault in this man. 5. But 
they were the more urgent, saying, 
He stirreth up the people, teaching 
throughout all Judea, and beginning 
from Galilee even unto this place. 

6. But when Pilate heard it, he asked 
whether the man were a Galilean. 

7. And when he knew that he was 
of Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him 
unto Herod, who himself also was at 
Jerusalem in these days. 

8. Now when Herod saw Jesus, 
he was exceeding glad: for he was 
of a long time desirous to see him, 
because he had heard concerning him; 
and he hoped to see some miracle 
done by him. 9. And he questioned 
him in many words; but he answered 
him nothing. 10. And the chief priests 
and the scribes stood, vehemently ac¬ 
cusing him. 11. And Herod zvith his 
soldiers set him at nought, and mocked 
him, and arraying him in gorgeous 
apparel sent him back to Pilate. 
12. And Herod and Pilate became 
friends with each other that very day: 
for before they were at enmity be¬ 
tween themselves. 


Proposed 

1. And the whole company of them 
rose up, and brought him before 
Pilate. 2. And they began to ac¬ 
cuse him, saying, We found this man 
perverting our nation, and forbidding 
to give tribute to Caesar, and saying 
that he himself is Christ a king. 
3. And Pilate asked him, saying, 
Art thou the king of the Jews? And 
he answered him and said, Thou 
sayest. 4. Pilate said unto the chief 
priests, and the multitudes, “I find 
in this man no cause for condemna¬ 
tion, 5. But they were the more 
urgent, saying, He stirreth up the 
people, teaching throughout all Ju¬ 
daea, and beginning from Galilee even 
unto this place. 6. But when Pilate 
heard it, he asked whether the man 
were a Galilean. 7. And when he 
heard that he was of Herod’s juris¬ 
diction, he sent and delivered him into 
the hands of Herod, who, himself 
also was in Je rusa ^ em in those days. 

8. Now when Herod saw Jesus, he 
was exceedingly glad; for he was 
of a long time desirous to see him, 
because he had heard concerning him; 
and he hoped to see some miracle 
done by him. 9. And he questioned 
him searchingly in many zvords but 
he answered him nothing. 10. And 
the chief priests and the scribes stood, 
vehemently accusing him. 11. But 
when Herod with his officers estimated 
him to be of no value whatever, and 
had abused him, arraying him in gor¬ 
geous apparel, he sent and surrendered 
him back to ^Pilate 12. And Herod 
and Pilate became friends with each 
other that very day; for before they 
were at enmity between themselves. 


78 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


13. And Pilate called together the 
chief priests and the rulers and the 
people, 14 and said unto them, Ye 
brought unto me this man, as one that 
perverteth the people; and behold, 1 
having examined him before you, 
found no fault in this man touching 
those things whereof ye accuse him: 
15 no, nor yet Herod; for he sent 
him back unto us; and behold, noth¬ 
ing worthy of death hath been done by 
him. 16. I will therefore chastise him 
and release him. 18. But they cried out 
all together, saying, Away with this 
man, and release unto us, Bar abbas: 
19. one who for a certain insurrection 
made in the city, and for murder, was 
cast into prison. 20. And Pilate 
spake unto them again, desiring to re¬ 
lease Jesus; 21. but they shouted, 
saying, Crucify, crucify him. 22. 
And he said unto them the third time, 
Why, what evil hath this man done? 
I have found no cause of death in 
him: I will therefore chastise him 
and release him. 23. But they were 
urgent with loud voices, asking that 
he might be crucified. And their 
voices prevailed. 24. And Pilate 
gave sentence that what they asked 
for should be done. 25. And he re¬ 
leased him that for insurrection and 
murder had been cast into prison, 
whom they asked for; but Jesus he de¬ 
livered up to their will. 


13. And Pilate, when he had called 
together the high priests and the rulers 
and the populace, said to them, 14 
You brought me this man as one that 
leadeth the people astray. And be¬ 
hold, I, having tried him in your pres¬ 
ence, found in this man no cause of 
condemnation in those things of zvhich 
you bring accusation against him. 15. 
But not so Herod; for he sent him 
back to us. And yet nothing worthy 
of death has been done by him; I 
will therefore chastise him, and re¬ 
lease him. 18. But they cried out 
all together, saying, Away with this 
man, and release unto us, Barabbas: 
19. one who for a certain insurrec¬ 
tion made in the city, and for mur¬ 
der, was cast into prison. 20. And 
Pilate spake unto them again, desiring 
to release Jesus; 21. but they shouted 
saying, Crucify, crucify him. 22. 
And he said unto them the third time, 
Why, what evil hath this man done? 
I have found in him nothing justify¬ 
ing sentence of death. I will there¬ 
fore chastise him and release him. 
23. But they were urgent with loud 
voices, asking that he might be cruci¬ 
fied. And their voices prevailed. 24. 
And Pilate gave sentence that what 
they asked for should be done. 25. 
And he released him that for insur¬ 
rection and murder had been cast 
into prison, whom they asked for; 
but Jesus he delivered up to their will. 


To understand this episode it ;is necessary to consider 
Herod's attitude to Jesus throughout his movement. Herod's 
first contact with this Messianic outbreak was with John the 
Baptist, whom he arrested and put to death when the public 
excitement resulting from his preaching threatened to become 
dangerous to the existing order. Shortly after the death of 
John the Baptist, when all Galilee was reacting to the preaching 
of Jesus and to the six pairs of disciples sent out to announce 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


79 


the immediate coming of the kingdom, Herod’s attention was 
called to this new phenomenon, which was so nearly identical 
with what he had experienced with John that Herod thought 
Jesus must be John the Baptist risen from the dead. He im¬ 
mediately set out to capture Jesus . (Luke 13:31) beyond ques¬ 
tion to put him to death, as he had put John the Baptist to death 
for the same cause. 1 Jesus, however, escaped him and left 
Galilee to go into foreign parts, outside of the jurisdiction of 
Herod, where he stayed until he determined to go to Jerusalem. 
He then proceeded secretly through Galilee, stopping at Caper¬ 
naum, and quietly gathering up the Galilean adherents who were 
to form the nucleus of his expedition. He attempted to leave 
Galilee and the territory of Herod as quickly as possible by 
traveling down the hill road through Samaria, but was prevented 
from doing so in this early stage of his expedition when its 
numbers had not grown to be formidable, by the citizens of 
some Samaritan town, the name of which has been lost. la Turn- 

1 Streeter, Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, p. 230, assumes the 
contrary. Meyer, Unsprung und Anfaenge des Christentums, p. 110, and Well- 
hausen, Binleitung p. 40, agree with the statement in the text here. 

^Possibly Sychar; this seems to be the first town large enough to make 
its resistance effective. If he came this far into Samaria he probably came di¬ 
rectly south from Engannin, thus avoiding Sebaste and Shechem. Smith, 
The Geography of the Holy Land, p. 374. Dalman, Orte und Wege Jesu, p. 226. 
In such case he returned to the Roman road leading down Wady Fara and 
crossed Jordan a short distance south of where the river Jabbok empties into it. 
If, however, as suggested on page 55, in accord with Luke 17:11, the village 
was near the border between Galilee and Samaria, the first Samaritan village 
approached, it would be Ginaea (Josephus, Wars, III, iii, 4), also known as 
Engannim, and the road traveled was across Mount Gilboa to Bethshean, just 
west of Jordan, then down the west side of Jordan to a junction with the 
Roman road, crossing Jordan at the point indicated above. Dalman, op. cit., p. 
224. It was also possible to cross at the fords about three miles east of Bethshean 
and come down the east side of Jordan from that point. The interruption added 
at least fifty miles and more than doubled the time to Jerusalem. Josephus— Vita, 
269, states that it required three days from the beginning of Samaria to Jerusa¬ 
lem ; it must have required more than a week by the road Jesus and his followers 
were required to take, and they arrived three or four days later than their orig¬ 
inal plans. Though we have no knowledge of any synchronization which was dis¬ 
turbed by this unexpected development, the added time must have placed an 



80 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


ing to the east he was compelled to take the road through Perea 
down the east side of Jordan, remaining within the reach of 
Herod for the time required to reach Jericho, where he 
again left the territories of Antipas. In the meantime, however, 
the persistence of danger from the officers of Herod was re¬ 
vealed by the message of those Pharisees who came to Jesus, 
and warned him, saying: “Go, get thee hence, for Herod seeks 
thee to kill thee.” 2 This warning had come to him not more 
than a week before the day when the events chronicled in Luke 
23 occurred. At that time Herod had been seeking persistently 
for Jesus with a continuously hostile intent, and with the ulti¬ 
mate purpose of putting him to death, for a period the exact 
length of which cannot be determined, but which had certainly 
continued for several weeks, perhaps months. 

Luke, who gives us information of this latest warning, 
evidently had forgotten it for the moment when he suggested in 
Luke 23 :8 the reason why Herod was glad to see Jesus. It is 
beyond the bounds of possibility to suppose that a governor who 
had for a long time been seeking a man to put him to death, 

added strain on the supplies of such a group and thus have increased the difficulty 
of holding them together after their arrival. The angry reaction of James and 
John (Luke 9:54) while not in the spirit of Jesus, was certainly natural 
enough. For a similar type of resistance to Jerusalem pilgrims by Samaritans, 
resulting in bloodshed, probably also at Engannim (Gema) see Wars II, xii, 3; 
Smith, op. cit., p. 354n; Dalman, op. cit., p. 224. 

2 Mark (10:1-12) and Matthew (19:1-12) locate at about this same point 
the inquiry relative to divorce and Jesus’ answer. Inasmuch as the Pharisees, 
now his open enemies, were “tempting” him in this question, it is entirely 
likely that the origin of the question was neither curiosity as to his views, 
nor desire for instruction on an abstract moral question, but an exact parallel 
to that penetrating inquiry in the Temple relative to the tribute. Its purpose 
now as then, was either to embroil Jesus with the government (in this in¬ 
stance with Herod, whose divorce and remarriage constituted an extraordi¬ 
narily sensitive point) or to break the confidence of the people in him if he 
should apparently or actually condone a matter of the sinfulness of which they 
were profoundly convinced. The experience of John the Baptist was sufficient 
warning of the danger of frank expressions on the question, of divorce, 
and it is likely that this utterance of Jesus added to the purely governmental 
hostility which Herod already entertained toward him. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


81 


would, when that man finally fell into his hands, find his pur¬ 
pose degenerated into a mere desire to see some marvel done by 
him. The desire to see the miracle no doubt existed, but un¬ 
doubtedly the greatest “gladness” grew out of the fact that this 
disturber was now in his hands. 3 

With this understanding, we can examine more carefully 
the factors in the story at hand. It is to be borne in mind that 
neither the observers nor the chronicler of this event were 
trained lawyers, consequently the report is in many respects 
loose and is only an approximation to a precise legal report of 
the procedure. 4 

The hearing before Pilate described in verses 1 to 4 was 
evidently a formal hearing. Verse 2 is obviously a free tran¬ 
script of the formal charge brought against Jesus. Each ele¬ 
ment of this charge constitutes a separate offense against the 
Roman government, upon which the Jewish officers sought a 
Roman sentence. Verse 3 is evidently an imperfect condensation 
of the examination or trial of Jesus by Pilate referred to later 
by Pilate in verse 14. And verse 4 is the equivalent of the 
formal judgment of this Roman court. Pilate formally found 
him not guilty. 

3 It is a pure guess to suggest that this interest in capturing Jesus was 
at least a contributing reason for the presence at that time of Herod in Jerus¬ 
alem, whither he knew Jesus was going, (Luke 13:32-33) but it is a guess 
with much probability in it. 

4 Cf. Loisy, Les Bvangiles Synoptiques, II 63: “Aucun Evangile ne con¬ 
sent le proces-verbal de ce qui se passa chez le procurateur. Nul disciple 
ne se trouvait a meme d’entendre les accusations des pretres, les questions de 
Pilate et les responses de Jesus. La tradition a pu connaitre seulement par 
voie indirecte les traits generaux de l’interrogatoire et les principaux incidents 
qui se passerent depuis le matin du vendredi jusqua l’heure du crucifiement.” 
“No gospel contains the literal report of what took place before the pro¬ 
curator, no disciple was present so as to hear the accusations of the priests, 
the questions of Pilate and the responses of Jesus. The tradition has been 
able to learn only through indirect channels the general characteristics of the 
examination and the most important incidents which took place from the day¬ 
break of Friday until *he hour of the crucifixion.” 



82 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


The trial before Pilate ended at this point. Jesus was ac¬ 
quitted, adjudged an innocent man so far as the charge under 
the Roman law was concerned. But the priests, protesting against 
the sentence, gave Pilate information which caused him not to 
release Jesus. This information was that Jesus was a Galilean, 
and that he had been guilty of stirring up tumult in Galilee. 
This offense, it was charged, had been committed in Galilee, 
outside Pilate’s jurisdiction, within the jurisdiction of Herod 
Antipas. Consequently, in preference to releasing Jesus to the 
crowd of Jews evidently so bitterly hostile to him, he decided 
to send him to Herod himself, who happened to be in Jerusalem 
at the time of this Passover, and who was the proper person to 
try one accused of offenses committed in Galilee. 5 

We meet here the first misapprehension on the part of 
Pilate, the first knot in the tangled skein of cross purposes and 
misunderstanding which ultimately led to the death of Jesus 
at the hands of the man who had acquitted him of the charge 
upon which he had tried him and who obviously desired to save 
his life. Herod and Pilate for some time had been very un¬ 
friendly, a situation justified, so far as we have knowledge, 
only by the fact that Pilate had recently put to death some 
Galileans in the midst of their sacrifices in Jerusalem; some no 
doubt of those riotous Galileans who were the leaders in most 
of the disturbances that harassed the Jewish nation during thx 
last sixty years of its national existence. Anger upon the part 
of Herod because of this harshness towards his subjects is a 
rational explanation of the enmity that existed between these 
two neighboring governors and desire to prevent the repetition 
of such an event well explains Herod’s presence in Jerusalem 

6 Streeter (Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, p. 230) correctly 
senses the reasons for sending Jesus to Herod, and comes near to’the realiza¬ 
tion that Herod could not have sent him back to Pilate as a man held to be 
innocent. 



Jesus* Jerusalem Expedition 


83 


at this time. 3 If this be correct, Pilate was thoroughly justified 
in assuming that this man Jesus, whose life was being sought 
by the Jerusalemites, but who was innocent of the charges 
brought against him, would be entirely safe in the hands of his 
lawful prince, who was so jealous of the safety of his subjects 
when in Jerusalem. Consequently, the easiest as well as the 
correct way out of the situation was to surrender jurisdiction 
over Jesus to Herod. This Pilate did. 6 

Full information of what occurred in that old palace of 
Herod would be extremely interesting, but it is not available. 
Evidently none of those Jews who subsequently became Chris¬ 
tians and were present at the other hearings in which Jesus 
appeared during these fateful hours, were present at this one; 
though perhaps Manaen, Herod’s foster-brother, later a promi¬ 
nent Christian, was an observer. 7 The glimpse which we get into 
it, however, runs entirely consonant with what we know of the 
attitude of Herod toward Jesus. He was glad to see him; per¬ 
haps for the reason given by Luke in verse 8, but probably 
much more so because he at last had in his possession the man 
whom he for a long time had been chasing with the intent to put 
him to death. He questioned him searchingly; the Greek words 
kv \6yoLs UavoZs are perhaps justifiably translated “in many 
words,” but they are also susceptible of another or additional 
meaning which is involved in them in this instance. T/ca^os 
means strong, powerful, vigorous, violent. In this instance it may 
well add to the sense of mere number, which the word usually 

6 A satisfactory reply to those critics who deny the historicity of this 
incident is given by Streeter (Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, 229- 
231.) His reasons for accepting it are two: (1) That there is no apparent 
apologetic motive or value in its insertion if not historical; (2) that the state¬ 
ment (Luke 23:12) that the incident led to a reconciliation between Herod 
and Pilate, not found elsewhere, completely illuminates and is illuminated by 
facts elsewhere recorded. To these we may now add, that without this inci¬ 
dent the procedure of Pilate is entirely incomprehensible. 

’Acts 13:1. 



84 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


has in New Testament, the violent character of the speech which 
Herod addressed to this man who had disturbed his dominions. 
The fact that Jesus refused to speak brought the proceeding to an 
early end, the nature of which is indicated both by the words 
used and by the accompanying treatment accorded the accused. 

The customary translation says that “Herod with his sol¬ 
diers set him at naught,” but this expression is entirely too weak 
to convey the idea of the word e^ovdevrjaas. The simple verb 
ov&eveoo means set at naught, make of no value, hold in con¬ 
tempt. The word used here, e£ou#ereco is the intensive; it means 
that they did the things conveyed by the simple verb, but to an 
extraordinary degree. They made Jesus worth less than noth¬ 
ing, of no value whatever. As did the Jews in the instance of 
Paul in the temple, (Acts, 22 22) they considered “such a 
fellow not fit to live.” 

Then they followed this up with actions suitable to such 
an estimation. They mocked him, made a jest of him by garb¬ 
ing him in garments suitable to the claim which it was now well 
understood that Jesus was making. This man who claimed to 
be the Messiah of Israel, which was equivalent, at least in the 
common mind, to being the anointed king of the Jews, they 
now dressed in garments of color appropriate to such a claim. 
They robed him in gorgeous raiment and prepared to send him 
back to the governor of Jerusalem for suitable treatment. 

But are we to infer from this language that they sent him 
back as an innocent man? Clearly not. That word expressing 
the intensest contempt and valuation at less than nothing what¬ 
ever is undoubtedly an expression of the intent of Herod to 
destroy him, if not a paraphrase of a formal judgment of con¬ 
viction. Garbing him as they did, is proof conclusive that they 
considered him guilty of the charge which was brought against 
him “saying that he, himself, is anointed King.” There is no 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


85 


reason whatever to assume that the purpose of Herod to destroy 
him had changed in the least. The whole proceeding before 
Herod is a practical equivalent of a condemnation upon the 
charge brought against him. 

Why then did Herod himself not destroy him while he was 
in his power? For the obvious reason that Herod was outside of 
his own territory and did not have the power of life and death 
while he was in Jerusalem. He had only recently fallen out 
with Pilate, because of Pilate’s abuse of power, an enmity which 
had continued up to this very moment. He was now delighted 
that Pilate had surrendered into his hands this great trouble 
maker, but he did not desire to give offense in turn by himself 
exceeding his authority while living as a visitor in Pilate’s city. 
Consequently, instead of putting Jesus to death himself, he re¬ 
turned Pilate’s courtesy, and sent the prisoner back to Pilate 
for suitable action but with clear evidence of his own estimate 
of the situation. 

The Greek word used to indicate the exchange of Jesus 
between these two officers is a word with precise legal signifi¬ 
cance. ’Avaire^TTco does not merely mean to send; it is a tech¬ 
nical judicial word meaning to surrender jurisdiction, to turn 
over to someone else with full authority. It is well translated 
by the expression, “send up,” which is used between our courts 
and higher courts, when a court “sends up” a case for review, at 
the same time surrendering its control over the case.* When 
Pilate aveireiaxpev Jesus to Herod, he surrendered him fully to 
Herod. He passed out of control and authority of Pilate into 
the complete authority and control of Herod. Similarly, when 
Herod aveire^ev him to Pilate, he again surrendered jurisdic- 

*Cf. for example, its use by Josephus, Wars, I, xxix, 3, end. Also^in Acts 
25:21. Creed, The Gospel according to St. Luke, p. 281, translates it “to send 
up to a higher authority.” 



86 


Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 


tion though this time with an entirely different presumption con¬ 
cerning his guilt. 

It is not reasonable to suppose that these interchanges be¬ 
tween the two officers took place without writings. When Pilate 
sent Jesus to Herod, beyond a doubt he sent information as to 
why he sent him and under what conditions. Similarly, when 
Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate he undoubtedly sent with him 
a communication telling Pilate his findings in connection with 
him. Had he found nothing wrong, had he found Jesus to be 
an innocent man who deserved his protection, he would himself 
have kept him. As it was, he sent him back to Pilate garbed 
in garments speaking more loudly than words of the estimation 
which Herod placed upon the charge that Jesus claimed to be 
King of the Jews, and no doubt with written statement of his 
finding that Jesus was actually guilty of the offenses charged 
to him, and therefore worthy of death. 

This procedure upon the part of Herod therefore placed 
Pilate in a new position, more difficult than that which obtained 
when he had sent Jesus to Herod. At that time he had just 
found Jesus not guilty of any crime and could very readily have 
released him, as he would doubtless have done had he not been 
told that Jesus was a Galilean. Now, however, the accused man 
was again in Pilate’s authority, in the anomalous position of 
having been found innocent by Pilate but guilty by Herod, who, 
as his lawful prince, had authority to pronounce such a sen¬ 
tence. Still disposed, however, very naturally, to release if pos¬ 
sible one who, he was convinced, was not guilty of the charges 
against him, Pilate undertook to justify both to the accusing 
chief priests and to the Jewish multitude whom he now called 
into the controversy, and thus indirectly to Herod himself, his 
intention not to carry out Herod’s obvious purpose. Justification 
for his own position he did not need. He did not propose, how- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


87 


ever, to ignore Herod’s decision entirely; to do so would have 
been to invite a renewal or even an accentuation of the enmity 
which had previously existed between them, and which held dan¬ 
gers for both in their relations with Rome. Since Jesus had 
been charged with being the leader of the multitude, he natur¬ 
ally assumed that a decision saving Jesus’ life would meet with 
the approval of the multitude and it was for this reason no 
doubt that he called the multitude before him with the chief 
priests and rulers. In this he made his second error of judg¬ 
ment, for the multitude of which Jesus was the leader was not 
present. The Jerusalem multitude had not accepted the Mes¬ 
sianic ideas of Jesus nor participated in the attempt upon the 
Temple; very probably most of them deeply resented that at¬ 
tempt. If they had any feeling toward him other than that of 
curiosity it was the usual Jerusalem attitude of dislike and con¬ 
tempt for the am-haaretz of Galilee and their leader, increased 
by the equivocal answer of Jesus on the question of the hated 
tribute. Consequently, just as he had mistakenly relied upon the 
friendly attitude of Herod, Pilate now mistakenly relied upon 
the friendly attitude of the multitude. 

Every translator, from Wyckliffe to Moffatt and Good- 
speed, has approached the speech which Pilate now delivered, 
with the conviction that Jesus had been acquitted by Herod. In¬ 
deed, the translation in Tyndale’s hands took the form which 
has persisted almost without change through all the English ver¬ 
sions down to and including the revised. This in the authorized 
version is as follows: 

“Ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the 
the people, and behold, I, having examined him before you, have 
found no fault in this man, touching those things whereof you 
accused him. No, nor yet Herod, for I sent you to him and lo nothing 
that is worthy of death is done by him. I will therefore chastise 
him and release him.” Luke 23 :14-16. 

The revised version, based upon the older text, is almost the 


88 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


same though with one essential difference. It reads as follows: 

“Ye brought unto me this man, as one that perverteth the 
people: and behold, I, having examined him before you, found no 
fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, 
nor yet Herod; for he sent him back unto us; and behold, nothing 
worthy of death has been done by him. I will therefore chastise him, 
and release him.” 

To see how wide of the mark this translation immediately 
appears, when once it is recognized that Herod had not found 
Jesus innocent, it is necessary only to examine the Greek. This, 
as given by Westcott and Hort, is as follows: 

TrpocrrjveyicaTe pot top apftpuirop tovtop cos diroarpe^opra top \olop 
Kai idov eye o epumop vpup dpanpipas ovftep evpop ep rco apfipuirco 
tovtco atTLOP up KaTrjyope'ire kclt’ avrov. aXX’ ovde 'lipudrjs, apeirepif/ep 
yap avrop irpos rjpas- Kai idov ovdep cl^iop ftaparov earip ireirpaypepop 
avru■ ivaibevaas ovp avrop airoXvau. 

Ultimately a re-editing of the passage for punctuation, with 
one change in word division, will be suggested. To begin with, 
however, let Pilate’s statement concerning Herod be considered 
in its present form. 

The Greek is: 

aAA’ ovde 'HpcoS^s, apeirepipep yap avrop irpos f/pas. 

The first clause of this sentence is elliptical; there are two 
conjunctions and a noun in the nominative, with predicate en¬ 
tirely lacking. The simple translation of the words as they stand 
would be 

“But not (indeed) Herod.” 

The basic and normal meaning of aWa is adversative. The 
natural thing to expect from this passage is contrast with what 
has gone before. Were the particle 5e lacking, that is, if the 
Greek read a\X’ ov% 'HpcbS^s, there would be no uncertainty 
whatever about this. It would mean definitely that whatever 
Pilate had done, Herod did not do. 

Leaving the discussion of the particle for the moment, ob- 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 89 

serve the statement contained in the previous sentence. Pilate 
says: 

eyoi) .... ovftev evpov ev r<2 av&pw ttco tovtcc airiov &v Karriyopelre 
kclt’ avrov. 

“I—found in this man nothing worthy of condemnation of those 
things of which you were accusing him.” 

This was a definite finding upon the part of Pilate; it is 
practically equivalent to saying “I found this man innocent .” 8 
This, then, is the sentence with which the succeeding elliptical 
expression is placed in contrast. 

“I found him guilty of nothing (i, e., I found him innocent) but 
Herod did not. 

Further, the contrast involves the subjects of the two sen¬ 
tences. The use of the pronoun eyu by Pilate is emphatic and 
results in placing his action in sharp contrast with that of Herod: 

'7 found nothing in this man worthy of condemnation, but, 
on the contrary, Herod did not.” 

In this use of the pronoun also is found the explanation for 
the use of the particle, be ; its correlative pev is implied in the 
emphatic eycb. Failure to observe this contrast has caused the 
editors to write the expression ovbe instead of ov be, thus fur¬ 
ther obscuring the meaning. 

Pilate does not stop with the mere statement that Herod did 
not (acquit him) ; he adds a clause of proof: 

aveirepypev yap avrov Tpos rj pas. 

“For he sent him back to us.” 

What was the significance of this sending back? The trans¬ 
lators all evidently have supposed that it meant that Herod had 
found him innocent. Yet such conclusion is entirely illogical and 
the exact opposite of the real meaning. Jesus was a subject of 
Herod. To Herod Pilate had sent him, an acquitted man in dan- 

8 Cf. Loisy, UBvangile selon Luc, p. 544, “Celle declaration formelle 
d’ innocence,” “This formal declaration of innocence.” 



90 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


ger because of the antagonism of the Jerusalem Jews. Had 
Herod also considered him innocent he would have kept him 
and protected him instead of sending him back to the population 
that was so obviously and so actively seeking for his life. There 
is no satisfactory reason whatever why Herod should have sent 
away into manifest danger a subject whom he had found not 
guilty of the charges brought against him. From Herod he was 
entitled to acquittal and protection, if he was innocent; only if 
he deserved punishment should Herod have sent him, still under 
arrest, back to the authority which alone in Jerusalem had power 
to punish. The proof, then, which Pilate submitted, fully sus¬ 
tained his statement, that ‘‘Herod did not” acquit him. 

The trouble that Gospel transcribers have had with this 
proof clause 9 indicates how difficult it has been to make its lan¬ 
guage support the interpretation universally given to aXX’ ovde 
'Kpudris. The oldest texts (« B K E and many others) carry 
the text given above. The Eucianic and Western texts (A D X 
and others) read 

aveirepypa yap vpas irpos avrov. 

“For I sent you to him.” 

Others of much less weight carry it 
avewepipa yap avrov irpos avrov 
“For I sent him to him.” 

while still others make it, 

aveTrepif/a yap avrov Tpos vpas 
“For I sent him to you.” 

All these variations from the oldest text are obvious attempts 
to emend the actual text so as to make the thought of the sen¬ 
tence consecutive, to make the second clause a real support, which 
the genuine text certainly is not, for the interpretation placed 

'Eaton, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 344: “The text of the second 
clause is in hopeless confusion.” 



Jesus* Jerusalem Expedition 


91 


upon the first clause. The difficulty that led to the attempted 
emendations disappears as soon as the correct meaning is given 
to the main clause. Herod has not acquitted him, for he has 
sent him back to Pilate. 10 

Pilate then has established his ground; he has found Jesus 
innocent but Herod has not. Consequently, something must be 
done about it. But before stating what he is going to do he sug¬ 
gests a qualification of the condition created by Herod’s failure 
to agree with him. Such decision upon the part of Herod has a 
definite limit: 

nai idov ovdev a&ov tfavarov ear iv Treirpaypevov ai> t&. 

In the current interpretation this also has been interpreted 
as a confirmation of the conviction that in these hearings every¬ 
thing ran in one direction. As a summing up Pilate was made 
to say 

“And behold, nothing worthy of death has been done by him.” 

Meaning thereby, that both himself and Herod had investi¬ 
gated the allegations and found nothing in them. But this sen¬ 
tence furnishes another contrast. Kat is not always consecutive; 
it is frequently used in the sense of contrast, T5ou is sometimes 
used in the same sense. Clearly the two together have that mean¬ 
ing here. 11 Herod has not found Jesus innocent; “and yet nothing 
worthy of death has been done by him.” 

“Montefiore (the Synoptic Gospels, II, 621) senses the essential elements 
of the transaction between Jesus and Pilate and Herod, and for complete 
solution of the problem requires only the correction of the translation given 
in the text. “Verse 15 rounds off the story about Herod, and Pilate is made 
to say that Herod takes the same view as himself as to Jesus’ innocency. It 
is noticeable that this is an inference which 6-12 had not entirely justified. 
Certainly what we get in 9, and more especially in 10-12, looks as if it were 
taken from the tradition according to which Herod had not, like Pilate, found 
nothing blameworthy in Jesus, but had condemned him. * * * It would be more 
in accordance with 15 * * * if Herod too had openly declared, just like Pilate, 
that he found Jesus not guilty.” But 15 as herein translated removes all the 
contradiction. 

“See Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, sub i8ov, 



92 


Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 


Pilate’s proposed action, so long considered by students of 
this episode to be wholly irrational, and indeed truly irrational 
in the meaning heretofore given to this passage, now becomes 
entirely rational. The prisoner is no longer held entirely inno¬ 
cent, he has been found guilty by a competent authority; yet his 
offense is not of supreme consequence, he has done nothing 
worthy of death. “I will therefore chastise him and release him.” 
Chastisement as concession to the decision of Herod; but release 
as his just due according to the finding of Pilate, that nothing 
worthy of death has been done by him. 

The plan should have succeeded had Pilate’s assumption as 
to the friendly attitude of the multitude been correct. That it 
did not is a subject for another discussion. 12 The only point es¬ 
sential to this one is the demonstration that neither the circum¬ 
stances nor the language justify the conclusion that Herod as 
well as Pilate found Jesus not guilty. 

Since this line of reasoning depends largely upon the inter¬ 
pretation given to the elliptical expression aXX’ ovde 'HpcbS^s, 
a little further examination of that expression is justified. 

’AXX’ ovde occurs four times in the New Testament and 
frequently in classic literature. In no place in the classics is it 
interpreted to mean agreement with the preceding sentence or 
clause; invariably it expresses contrast. Sometimes it is best 
translated “But not even”; in others “But not indeedSome¬ 
times as plain “but not.” But in no place in classic literature is 
it representative of a mere continuation of the idea contained 
in the previous sentence; always it presents a contradictory or 

especially his reference to nal Ldov in 2 Cor. 6:9 and Matt. 7:4. As to the 
use of KaL in contrast, see Thayer, Lexicon N. T. sub KaL I, 2, e citing 
especially Matt. 3:14, 6:26, 10:29, Rev. 3:1, etc.; Liddell and Scott, Lexicon, 
sub nai ,, A, II, 3, A IV. 

“Harlow, Jesus the Man, p. 242 ff. For other reasons for the conclu¬ 
sion that Herod condemned Jesus, ibid., p. 240, note. 



Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 93 

contrasted idea. A characteristic example is found in Homer’s 
Odyssey, I, 6: 

apvvpevos rjv re xpvxw KaL voarov eraipcov. 

aXX’ ov8’ cos eralpovs eppvaaro lepevos irep. 

“Seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades. 

But not thus did he save his comrades, eager though he was.” 

Another is the Iliad, 7, 263: 

rprjbrjv b’avxw’ eirr)\i}e, pe\av 5’ aveni]Kiev alpa. 

a XX’ ou5’ cos aire\r]ye paxys Kopvfialoko s ''E/crcop. 

“Cutting it (the spear) struck his neck, and the black blood 
gushed forth. But not thus did Hector of 1 the glancing helm leave 
the combat.” 

This grows out of the basic connotation of aXXa which 
carries the root signification of aXXos and is adversative; it in¬ 
variably introduces a new, a different idea. The construction 
occurs in seven other instances in the Iliad, always with the same 
effect. 

Another significant observation is that in such constructions 
ovde is practically equivalent to ov. The be in composition mere¬ 
ly serves to intensify the connection with what goes before. Its 
effect might be indicated by adding “even,”—“but not even,”— 
but at the expense of accuracy, for “even,” adds an emphasis 
not actually contained in the Greek. 

In the New Testament beside the instance under discussion, 
this construction occurs three times, two of which are in Paul’s 
letters, the other, as in this instance, by Luke. In Acts 19:2: 

ehrev re irpos avrovs El irvevpa ay iov eka\Sere maTevaavres ; ol be 
Trpos avrov ’AXX’ ovb ’ el irvevpa ay iov early rjnovaapev. 

“And he said unto them, Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when 
ye believed?” And they said unto him, “Nay, we did not so much 
as hear whether there is a Holy Spirit.” 

Here also there is an ellipsis. The translation is determined 
by the manner in which the translator supplies the omitted idea. 
Undoubtedly the expressed words present a contrast to those un¬ 
expressed. Most reasonably the contrast is with the idea of pro- 


94 


Jesus’ Jerusalem Expedition 


priety or obligation or proper expectation involved in the query 
of Paul. That question indicates that they should have received 
the Holy Spirit. Their answer means “Perhaps we should have 
received the Holy Spirit as you suggest; but quite to the con¬ 
trary we have not heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” The con¬ 
trast involved in the aXAa is here clear and distinct. Here also 
the be in ovbe would be better not translated. Its significance is 
in its reference back to the preceding matter rather than in in¬ 
tensification of the contrast. A more accurate translation would 
be “On the contrary, we did not hear whether there is a Holy 
Spirit.” 

The essential factor for the present question, however, is 
that in this instance the expression aXX’ ovb’ as a whole definite¬ 
ly indicates an absolute contrast with what goes before. 

It is significant that these two instances exhaust the ap¬ 
pearance of the construction in the historical books, and that 
both are used by Luke. The inference is legitimate that he has 
used them with uniform effect. 

Indeed, though the grammarians indicate to the contrary, 
it is extremely doubtful whether in any of the gospels, partic¬ 
ularly in Luke, even without ov, dAAa is used in any sense ex¬ 
cept that of contrast. The idea of “heightening” mentioned by 
Thayer (sub ctXXd) is characteristic of a few instances in Paul, 
but the instances cited in Luke are all more satisfactorily trans¬ 
lated as contrast rather than as consecutive, or, as Blass puts it, 
“introducing an accessory idea.” These instances deserve atten¬ 
tion. The first one is Luke 12 :6, 7: 

01 /%! 7 revre crTpovdia iviSkovvTai aaaapiosv bvo ; Kal ev avrcov ovk 
Zctlv eTriKeXrjapevov evcomov rod tieov. aXXa Kal ai rplxes rrjs K€(f)a\rjs 
vpcov rjpL^prjvraL. 

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pence? And not one of 
them is forgotten in the sight of God. But the very hairs of your 
head are numbered.” 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


95 


This is the clearest example of the “consecutive” use avail¬ 
able in Luke. Yet this use is actually a contrast with the idea 
imbedded, though not expressed, in the preceding clause. A type 
of ellipsis exists in this kind of statement. “Are not five spar¬ 
rows sold for two pence? And not one of them is forgotten in 
the sight of God. God forgets not the least important thing, but 
on the contrary the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” 
Heightening there is, but the accessory clause is so much stronger 
as to make a sharp contrast with the first clause. The dXXd 
shows the contrast in the heightening; otherwise the Kai alone 
would completely add the accessory idea. 

In Luke 16:21: 

e'Kl'&VH&V X°P TCL(T ^) vai blTO T&V TTUTTOPTCOP CUTO TTjs TpCLTTe£r]S TOV 

TrXovaiov aXXa Kai oi Kwes epxbpepoi exeXet x ov T avrov. 

“desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich 
man’s table; yea, even the dogs came and licked his sores.” 

This translation does eliminate contrast entirely; it makes 
the second sentence merely another in the catalogue of the un¬ 
happy features of the condition of Lazarus. Yet in the Greek, 
and even in the English context, the contrast between even that 
humble desire and what actually occurred is obvious. There is 
nothing to indicate that Lazarus was actually fed from the table 
of Dives as he desired; on the contrary what actually happened 
was that the dogs came and licked his sores. The passage could 
be better translated, “but instead, even the dogs came and licked 
his sores.” This would give the full basic meaning to aXXa and 
would be entirely compatible with the situation. 

In Luke 24:21,22. 

fipels be ifKiri^opev otl avros eajiv 6 peWup \vTpova&aL top ’laparjX- 
aXXa ye Kai avv 7 raaiv tovtols tplttjp ravrrjp rjpepav ayei a<£’ ov raOra 
eyevero. aXXa Kai ywalKes nves e£ rjpojp e^earTjaav rjpas k.t.\. 

“But we hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel. Yea, 
and beside all this, it is now the third day since these things came 


96 Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 

to pass. Moreover, certain women of our company amazed us, having 
been early at his tomb, etc.” 

The application of the “heightening” theory here has ob¬ 
scured the evident meaning. These three clauses they are rather 
sentences, and the point after To-pai^X could better be a period 
—are in active contrast; the second with the first and the third 
with the second. The second is incomplete, not expressing fully 
the disappointment at the failure of materialization of the hope 
expressed in the first. Such a translation as follows completely 
accords with the circumstances, and carries the full adversative 
force of dXXa: 

“We hoped that he was the one who should redeem Israel. 

But indeed he evidently was not for even with all these things the 
third day is now passing since these things occurred. But yet, we are 
still uncertain, for certain women of our company amazed us, etc. 

Blass’s statement, then, for Luke, should be modified to this 
extent: dXXa < y€ kcll and dXXa nai are used to introduce an acces¬ 
sory idea in a manner so emphatic as to produce a contrast zvith 
the idea zvhich it follows and with which it is compared. It is 
not used in such a way that it can properly and fully be trans¬ 
lated “and also.” 

The significance of these considerations in estimating the 
proper effect of dXX’ ovbe 'Hpcobrjs is apparent. 

The other two instances of dXX’ ovbe occur in Paul s first 
letter to the Corinthians 3 :2 and 4:3. In 3 :2 it is as follows, 
in the revisers’ text: 

7 <xXa vpas eironoa, ov fipdopa- ovtto) yap ebvvaode- dXX’ ou5e er 

vvv bvvaode ; en yap aapKiKoi eore. 

“I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not able to 
bear it; not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal.” 

Tischendorf punctuates with a period after ebvvaode ; but 
Westcott-Hort and Nestle in addition end the paragraph at 
that point and begin a new paragraph with dXX’ ovbe. Such 
treatment breaks the close consecution indicated by the revisers’ 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


97 


text, and indicates a change in the thought. And it leaves room 
to fill out the ellipsis creating the mental attitude which caused 
Paul to use aXXa instead of /cal. This intervening idea was the 
immediate step after the suggestion “for you were not yet able 
to bear it,” to-wit, that “whenever you were able to bear it, I 
intended to feed you meat.” This idea Paul did not express, but 
it found its contrast in his next sentence, “but not even yet are 
ye able.” Without this intervention kcll would express his atti¬ 
tude better. 

In I Cor. 4:3: 

epol be els eXccxurroj' eanv tv a v</>’ vpcov avaKpitiu rl vto avdpojTTLvrjs 
rjpepas■ aXX’ ovbe epavTov avaKpLVW ovbev yap epavrcc avvoiba, aXX’ 
ovk ev tovtco bebiKaiopau, 6 be ava Kp'tvuv pe Kvptos eanv. 

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged 
of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For 
I know nothing against myself; yet I am not hereby justified: but 
he that judgeth me is the Lord.” 

Here is one place where the revisers certainly failed to make 
the meaning more clear. It is a passage which has caused trouble, 
—as a matter of fact, aXX’ ovbe always has caused trouble for 
translators since English translations began. That aXX’ ovbe epavrov 
avaKpivLo has been translated in many ways, of which the revis¬ 
ers’ form is not the best. Here are several of them: 

Wyckliffe: But nether I deme my silf. 

Tyndale, (Cranmer and Geneva) No, I judge not myn own selfe. 

Rheims: But I judge not myself neither. 

Authorized (and R. V.) : Yea, I judge not mine owne selfe. 

Moffatt: I do not even cross-question myself. 

Goodspeed: I do not even offer myself for investigation. 

To get at the meat of this somewhat obscure passage it is 
necessary to begin with 4:1. Herewith is a proposed translation 
from that point, which differs in essential meaning from all the 
others: 

Thus let a man estimate us, as ministers of Christ and stewards 
of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it is required in stewards 
that one be found faithful. To me indeed it is of very slight con- 


98 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


sequence that I be examined (for faithfulness) by you, or by any 
human day (of judgment). 

But I do not examine myself ; for I have no consciousness of 
wrong within me. But I am not justified in this fact; he that ex- 
amineth me is the Lord. Wherefore, decide nothing before the Time, 
until the Lord come, who will both turn the light upon the hidden 
things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the heart; 
and then shall the approval come to each one from God. 

This translation appears to be thoroughly tenable, and if so 
gives to aXXa its basic adversative value. It must be admitted 
that in other instances, notably II Cor. 7:11, Phil. 3:8, Phil. 
1:8, II Cor. 11:1, Paul uses aXXa in a manner that is clearly 
susceptible of the “accessory idea” interpretation of Blass and 
Robertson, and that finding these instances gives support to the 
tendency to apply the same method in the two instances discussed 
above. But such interpretation is peculiar to Paul, and is not 
necessary even in these cases; it is less compatible with the con¬ 
text than the contrast or adversative idea. And it must be re¬ 
membered that aXXa with the negative, presents an entirely dif¬ 
ferent situation from that which arises with the use of aXXa 
alone. 

No little of the uncertainty surrounding the interpretation of 
aXX’ ovde has grown out of the feeling that the de added to the 
ov to make the ovde has in every instance added something to 
the negative. This is not true; there are numerous instances 
where the de with ov has no translation value whatever, but 
merely has the effect of impressing the second clause with its 
relation to the one preceding, which may or may not be trans¬ 
latable in special word. Such an instance is Luke 6:3, where 
the translation is strained to make room for the de. ’0u5e would 
be better translated as a straight “not” : “Have ye not read what 
David did, when he was hungry?” The same comment is justi¬ 
fiable in Luke 23 :40. As a matter of fact this combination of 
the two words into one is often an error. They are frequently 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


99 


separated in classical usage, as, for example in Iliad 5:138, 
24:418, and in some of these difficult passages which we are dis¬ 
cussing the same editorial practice would be desirable. Under 
such circumstances the be would always have its own adversa¬ 
tive value, greater or less as the circumstances require. 

Accordingly these aXX’ ovde cases might be generally an¬ 
alyzed to this effect: they are instances of specially emphatic 
contrast, where the one weak adversative be or even aXXa is in¬ 
sufficient to express it, and where the aXXa is used in the sense 
of “on the contrary,” in order to supplement the be and thus 
emphasize the contrast. But the construction is never properly 
translated as a pure cumulative statement, merely adding to a 
previous statement more of the same kind. 

A re-editing of Luke 23:13-16, especially in its punctua¬ 
tion, is now proposed: 

IleiXaTOS be avvKa\eaapevos tovs dpx^peTs /cal rovs apxovras /cal 
tov \aov ehrev irpos avrovs Hpoar]veyKaTe pot tov av&pwTrov tovtov cos 
cnroaTpecfrovTa tov \aov. Kal ibov eyco, evdcmov vpcov avaKpivas, 
ovftev evpov ev rw avtiponrco tovtco alriov cov KaTrjyopelre /car’ avrov. 
’AXX’ ov be 'HpcoSr/s- aveirepypev yap avrov irpos rjpas. Kal ISou, 
ovbev a%iov Zavarov ecrriv ireivpaypevov aurar iraibevaas ovv avrov 
air o\vao). 

The proposed new translation is that given on page 76 at 
the beginning of this discussion. 13 

13 Lest such an attempt as that given in the text above seem useless, ob¬ 
serve the four essentially different forms which this passage takes at the 
hands of the great modern editors: 

Griesbach, Mill, Schols, Tregelles 

’AXX’ obbh 'Hpubijs' &veirefxxf/a yap bpas irpds abrdv, Kal ibov ovbb &%lov davarov eariv 
ireirpaypevov avr<$. xatSeucras ovv abrbv &7roXv<ra>. 

Tischendorf 

’AXX’ obbe 'Hp&bris’ aveTrepxf/ev yap avrdv irpos ripas, Kal ibov ovbev a^iov dav&rov lari 
ireirpaypevov avrco. tt atbevaas ovv abrbv biroXvaoi. 



100 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Westcott and Hort, Nestle 

’AW’ ov8k ’HpooSrjs, avkirepupev yap avrov irpos npas’ /cat iSov ov8ev aljiov davarov 
karlv Tcewpaypevov aurar TaiSevcras ovv avrov airoXvacv. 

Von Soden 

’AW ov8k 'Hpu8r)s. avkirepypev yap avrov irpos ripas, /cat i8ov o88kv a£iov davarov karlv 
irtirpaypkvov avrco. iraiSevaas ovv avrov airoXvaoi. 

Certainly in view of these wide editorial variations it cannot be said 
that this text is so well settled as to make any further suggestion useless 
or impossible. 


VIII 

"Erepoi KCLKovpyoL 5i/co. 

Considering the nature of Jesus’ movement upon Jerusalem 
and the intense antagonism which it aroused, it would seem, 
upon the face of it, strange that the record shows no one to 
have been arrested and put to death besides Jesus himself. 
Especially does this seem strange when we consider the evi¬ 
dence that the hostility of the Jerusalem authorities was not 
confined to Jesus alone. 

All four of the gospels agree in the statement that there 
was a struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane at the time of 
Jesus’ arrest, which reached the extent of bloodshed. Matthew 
and Mark agree in the statement that after the struggle all the 
disciples abandoned Jesus and fled. Mark adds the information 
that the arresting officers were able to lay hold upon one young 
man, presumably Mark himself, but that he escaped by leaving 
his garment in the hands of his pursuers. These facts clearly 
indicate the desire to arrest others beside Jesus. 

The apocryphal Gospel according to Peter reveals the 
necessity which compelled the disciples to hide from their pur¬ 
suers : “and being wounded in mind, we hid ourselves: for we 
were being sought for by them as malefactors and as wishing to 
set fire to the temple.” 

This sense of danger is also manifested in the story of 
Peter’s denial of his relation to Jesus in the court of the High 
Priest. Had it been safe to do so, Peter certainly would have 
admitted his knowledge of Jesus. Likewise, the remark that 
was made indicates that the interest of the officers was not in a 
single person: “Thou, also, art one of them.” And the popular 
understanding of the composition of the crowd which followed 

( 101 ) 


102 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


Jesus is also revealed by the remark of another who accused 
Peter of complicity: “Of a truth thou art one of them, for thou 
art a Galilean.” Evidently a search was being- conducted for 
every one who had been in any way attached to the movement, 
especially for Galileans. 

Yet the universal opinion has been that Jesus, alone, suf¬ 
fered the wrath of the outraged rulers, and that all who had 
been associated with him either were not sought for, or were 
permitted to escape. The Gospel of John, indeed, shows that 
this view had crystallized by the early part of the second cen¬ 
tury, by the words put into the mouth of Jesus at the time of 
his arrest: “That the word might be fulfilled which he spake, 
Of those whom thou hast given me, I lost not one.” 

Such a view of the matter was entirely compatible with 
the idea that only the Twelve constituted the following of Jesus. 
The subsequent story of the Christian movement accounts for 
all twelve of these, thus leaving no possibility for the arrest of 
any follower. But the realization that there was a great crowd 
of followers with Jesus in the Temple, assisting in his attack 
upon the merchants and Temple authorities, and protecting him 
against the desire of the authorities to arrest him, raises a ques¬ 
tion at once as to whether all these people could have been able 
to escape such a manifest purpose to secure those who were in¬ 
volved with him in the Temple. 

Such a curiosity will instantly fall upon the only other per¬ 
sons who are known to have suffered with him. 

The incident is very briefly told. 

Mark gives it (R. V.) 

“And with him they crucify two robbers; one on his right hand 
and one on his left; and they that were crucified with him reproached 
him.” 

Matthew is almost identical: 

“Then are there crucified with him two robbers, one on the 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


103 


right hand and one on the left. The Scribes and elders said: “He 
saved others; himself he cannot save. He is the King of Israel; let 
him now come down from the cross, and we will believe upon him. 

He trusteth in God; let him deliver him now if he desireth him: for 
he said, I am the son of God. And the robbers also that were cruci¬ 
fied with him cast upon him the same reproach.” 

Luke makes the story more circumstantial: 

“And there were also two others, malefactors, led with him 
to be put to death. And when they came unto the place which is called 
the skull, there they crucified him, and the malefactors with him, one 
on the right hand and the other on the left. And one of the male¬ 
factors that were hanged railed on him, saying: Art thou not the 
Christ? Save thyself and us. But the other answered and rebuking 
him said, Dost thou not (even) fear God, seeing thou art in the same 
condemnation? and we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said, 
Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said 
unto him, Verily I say unto you, this day shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise.” 

The peculiarities of this story have attracted the attention 
of great numbers of students of the story of Jesus, but probably 
for the reason suggested above, it seems to have occurred to no 
one who has written about it that these two men, instead of 
being merely casual criminals included in the execution for the 
reason that they were due to be executed at that time, were two 
of Jesus’ own followers captured with him, and for that rea¬ 
son included in “the same condemnation.” 

Certain obvious considerations deserve attention, after 
which the matter may be examined more in detail. 

First, the location of the other two crosses, one on either 
side of Jesus, would indicate some relation between them; the 
leader, for example, between his two followers. Next, the fact 
that the two men who were dying with him “reproached him,” 
or, as Luke puts it, “railed at him,” is psychologically a most 
extraordinary thing. 'Slvdbi^ov, the word used by Matthew and 
Mark, carries with it a sense of personal wrong; very frequent¬ 
ly it is used with the accusative of the charge imputed to the per¬ 
son reproached. Now it is not normal for one who is in the agony 


104 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


and fear of death, as were these two men, to maintain an ab¬ 
stract antagonism which would bring forth this show of feeling 
toward a stranger. The idea of dying men jeering at another 
dying man merely because of some foolish notion which he had 
previously held is so far from the facts of human nature as to 
be grotesque. If these men were abusing Jesus, were “upbraid¬ 
ing him” it was because they had had some previous relation 
with him, had suffered some wrong at his hands which justified 
them in an anger towards him, intense enough to carry over 
even into so terrible a moment. 

If they were reproaching him for his erroneous beliefs, it 
was because those erroneous beliefs had had some evil effect 
upon them. 

The suggestion is strengthened by the distinction drawn 
between the two by Luke, who, instead of saying as Matthew 
and Mark that both reproached him, indicates that only one did 
so, while the other used language conciliatory and submissive. 
The second reminds the first that “We are in the same condem¬ 
nation,’* ev tgj avrco ftpl/xari. What condemnation? Jesus had 
been condemned to death upon the charge of riot, of leading the 
nation astray, of claiming a kingly authority contrary to that 
of Rome. If these men were in the same condemnation, they 
must have participated in the same offense . 1 The passage can¬ 
not properly be interpreted as meaning merely that these men 
found themselves in the same position as regards approaching 
death. The Greek word translated “condemnation” cannot prop¬ 
erly be used as an equivalent of “situation.” 

Kptjua is variously translated as a decision, a decree, a judg¬ 
ment, a sentence ; meaning always a decision based upon a legal 
ground. When used, as it frequently is in the New Testament, 
to refer to the decisions of God, it always carries with it the 


1 Cf. Eisler, The Messiah Jesus, pp. 10, 510. 



Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


105 


legalistic attitude of Jehovah, judging men by His law. If these 
men were in the same sentence, it must have been the outgrowth 
of the same proceeding, for the language is not that it was a like 
sentence, but t& avru> KpipaTL , the same identical sentence. 

Further, both speakers in Luke’s story appear familiar with 
Jesus, his ideas and expectations, and his previous actions. 
Especially is the last speaker on intimate terms with the whole 
Messianic expectation. He speaks the same language that would 
be spoken by an intimate follower of Jesus. He is familiar with 
the very complex idea that Jesus and his kingdom will yet come 
even after the terrible event in which they at that moment are 
concerned. He has previous knowledge that Jesus has done 
nothing out of the way,—knowledge which no one could have 
who had not been with him through the period involving the 
matters upon which he had been convicted. He, himself, is a 
believer in the Messiahship of Jesus and holds this conviction so 
strongly that it is not broken even by the contradictory actual 
fact of Jesus’ condition at that time. No assumption that Jesus 
had had time to instruct him concerning these many items in the 
brief period during which they had been cast into contact by this 
execution, sufficiently to give him this great conviction, is ten¬ 
able. These convictions must have been the product of much 
longer association under more favorable conditions. The resur¬ 
rection, which was to convince so many people of the Messiah¬ 
ship, was yet to come; the status in which Jesus then stood was 
in every respect contradictory to the popular idea of the Messiah. 

The words of Jesus himself are striking, “This day,” said 
he. “thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” This language, that 
of the great majority of the texts, is a reply to the request of the 
second speaker. Such an answer could scarcely be a response to 
an unexpected spoken adherence. When the practical certainty 
of previous close acquaintance, as shown by the language of 


106 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


the man addressing him is remembered, the answer of Jesus 
seems far more like an encouragement to a believer passing with 
him through the valley. And the language of the reply as given 
by D is, if correct, even more significant. In this manuscript, 
Jesus is shown as addressing the one who was blaspheming 
him: “Answering, Jesus said to the very one who was abusing 
him, Be of good courage ; To-day thou shalt be with me in Para¬ 
dise.” If this reading is considered, it is beyond doubt that he 
was here attempting to revive the courage of his fainting follow¬ 
er by reminding him that the promises still held good, and that 
beyond the bitterness of the experience through which they were 
passing lay the glories of the Kingdom. 

The words used to describe these men are interesting. Mark, 
followed by Matthew, calls them Xfjcrrcu. This, the AV translates 
as “thieves.” The RV translates it more accurately as “robbers,” 
but even this word does not carry the full connotation of the 
Greek. The \rjjTr]s was characterized, not so much by the tak¬ 
ing of the property, as by the violent method by which he took 
it. He was a freebooter, a plunderer, a pirate, a buccaneer. He 
was on land the equivalent of those English gentlemen who sailed 
the Spanish Main or, perhaps of the type of Robin Hood and 
his followers. Thus Thucydides calls attention to the fact that 
the term did not always carry with it a disgraceful connotation, 
even among the Greeks. Among the Jews at that time the rob¬ 
ber bands which infested the mountains and, refusing to sub¬ 
mit to the Roman domination, lived by brigandage, were many 
times a type of national heroes and their deeds were chronicled 
as matters of historical value and racial pride. Such a man 
had David been when he was a fugitive from Saul ; 2 such the 
great Judas, the popular hero of Galilee in Jesus’ own youth. 

2 I Samuel, 22:2: “And everyone that was in distress, and everyone 
that was in debt, and everyone that was bitter of soul, gathered themselves 
unto him; and he became captain over them.” 



Jesus* Jerusalem Expedition 


107 


The current idea, based upon the Authorized Version, that these 
men were common pilferers or petty thieves, is very far from 
a correct interpretation of the Greek term used . 3 

The term used by Luke is still further from the common no¬ 
tion. He calls them KaKovpyoL , which is translated both in AV 
and RV as “malefactors.” This term, however, in the few other 
places where it is used in the New Testament and Septuagint, 
carries with it primarily the idea of one who has broken the law 
or who merely is a criminal in the legal sense. This is its most 
common use in classic Greek. It has no necessary presumption 
of base or disgraceful crime. In our time it could apply alike 
to the violator of the traffic laws, to the instigator of a riot, or 
to a housebreaker. It means the breaker of any law. The con¬ 
clusion is entirely legitimate that these men were not common 
thieves, but were men who had come under the ban of the law 
as revolutionists, for some act of violence which may or may 
not have involved the taking of property. 

An interesting sidelight is found in Luke's first reference 

interesting in the extreme is Josephus’ use of the word. The story of 
the Wars, in particular, is full of it, used in many contexts, with varying 
meaning but always carrying the essential connotation of membership in an 
organized band offering violent resistance against the legal authority, usual¬ 
ly but not always including robbery. For instance, the followers of Simon 
and of Athrongaeus, each of whom set himself up as a claimant to the king¬ 
dom following the death of Herod the Great, were called Xgo-rcu. whose 
“principal object was to kill Romans and royalists” (Wars, II, iv, 23). 
Hezekiah, whose destruction by Herod was the beginning of that prince’s 
great career, was the leader of a great host of men, was called dpxtX^r^s 
and his followers Xfjarai, (I, x, 5). In II, iii, 3, Josephus called the Sicarii 
Irepov elSos XyaTuv, likewise in ii, 18. The (probably) Messianic outbreaks 
recorded by him in II, xiii, 3, were participated in by the impostors and the 
Xgo-rat, — oi yap totjtcs ical XyaTinoi avvax^vres. Festus found them the principal 
plague of the country, t&v tovv Xjiarcov crvveXa(3ev re irKeiaTovs, and “put not a few 
to death,” crucifixion being the usual punishment. In II, xvi, 7, 8, and in xix, 
i, the Jewish rebels are plainly called Xfjarai. The distinction between the 
frXwrtu and the Xficrrai. is very narrow, if it exists. These two Xyarai who 
were put to death were spiritual brethren of Simon the Zealot, one of the 
Twelve. Cf. Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, II, p. 222 (English 



108 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


to these two men. The Revised Version puts it “And there 
were also two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to 
death.” 

This is a translation of the Greek as found in the early 
edited texts, as follows: 

rjyovTO kcll erepoi 5uco Kanovpyoi crvv aura). This order of the 
words, however, while supported by numerous old manuscripts, 
does not have the support of the oldest and best manuscripts. 
X, B, Sahidic and Coptic give them as follows: 

riyovro teal erepot, KaKovpyoi 5uco gvv aurco. 

The significance of the difference is apparent. The cur¬ 
rent text says, there were led with him two others, malefactors. 
The oldest texts say, there were led with him other malefactors, 
two. If this means anything, it means that Jesus was a male¬ 
factor in the same basic sense that the other two were. 

Probably because of a shrinking from this necessary im¬ 
plication, Tischendorf in this verse varies his almost universal 
estimate of the weight of documentary authorities. Almost in¬ 
variably, when and B agree against all other manuscript au¬ 
thorities, Tischendorf accepts the « B reading. But in this in¬ 
stance he does not. He abandons the older reading because of 
the obvious implication that the older language would make of 
Jesus also a Kaicovpyos. Westcott and Hort, however, more 
thoroughgoing and undoubtedly more worthy of confidence, do 
not vary from their rule, and sustain the « B combination against 
the later texts. They give the correct reading as erepoi naKovpyoi 
5vco. Nestle, likewise, agrees with the Westcott-Hort reading, 
as does Von Soden. 4 

Translation, New York, 1887) : “There went on constantly the war of Roman 
troops against the secedefs in the mountains, the Zealots as the Jews named 
them, or, according to Roman designation, the Robbers.” Also Simkhovitch, 
Toward the Understanding of Jesus, Chapter II. 

4 Scrivener, almost the only great modern scholar who adheres to the 
T. R., calls this W-H reading “wholly impossible.” ( Introduction, p. 547). 



Jesus'* Jerusalem Expedition 


109 


The conclusion is unavoidable. Ruke’s story means that 
Jesus and two other malefactors, were led out together to death; 
all of them malefactors, no doubt, in the sense that they had 
violently ignored the law. 

The very terms describing the crucifixion indicate the dose 
relation between them. These KaKovpyot were not merely cruci¬ 
fied at the same time and placed near Jesus; they were crucified 
with him, crvaraypco^evres (Matthew). The whole process was 
in the closest, most intimate relation; one in condemnation, one 
in character of violation of the law, one in actual infliction of 
punishment, one in consciousness as they approached death, one 
in expectation of a glorious beyond. 

Hence the conditions of the problem can be concluded un¬ 
der a statement something like this: 

At the same time, or a few hours before or after the arrest 
of Jesus, at least two of his followers were arrested and 
turned over directly to the Roman authorities. To the offense 
of being participants in Jesus’ attempt against the Jewish gov¬ 
ernment, they had added some other offense which in the opinion 
of one of them justified their condemnation. 5 Their identity 
with their leader was established, and they were taken to be 
crucified at the same time with him. Recognizing the disaster 
into which their confidence in the promises of Jesus and their 
following him to Jerusalem had led them, one of them broke 

He, like Tischendorf, is influenced by the manifest implications of the order, 
and keeps his fixed idea in preference to conformity with the textual evi¬ 
dence. Such preference of course underlies his unwillingness to accept the 
evidence of B and ^ as almost all other textual critics do. 

Similarly to Scrivener, Easton, The Gospel according to Luke, ad loc. 
p. 347: “malefactors cannot be meant to include Christ.” 

5 Eisler, Jesus the Messiah, p. 510, thinks that they were the leaders in 
an unauthorized attempt by the followers of Jesus to take the city of Jerusalem 
by seizing the Temple and the Tower of Siloam. While he does not make a 
satisfactory case for his claim, he recognizes the effect of the words “in the 
same condemnation.” 



110 


Jesus' Jerusalem Expedition 


out into bitter upbraiding of the man whom he believed to be 
responsible for his condition, challenging him to show that he 
was not an impostor by saving himself and them; while the other, 
retaining the faith which had brought him to Jerusalem in 
that great crowd who looked for the immediate coming of the 
Kingdom, begged to be remembered in that Kingdom, which 
he still believed was to come. Jesus, retaining up to the moment 
of death his own conviction of the certainty of the promises, 
reassured his followers that the failure was only apparent and 
that the promised blessings would be theirs that very day. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

and 

INDEX 












Bibliography 

of works cited in this study 

Bacon, Benjamin, The Story of Jesus. 

Bartlett, J., In Encyclopedia Brittanica, 13th Edition. 

Beerman und Gregory, Die Koridethi Evangelien. 

Beass-Thackeray, Grammar of the New Testament. 

Burkitt, F. Craweord, Evangelion da Mepharresshe. 

Burkett, F. Craweord, Jesus Christ. 

Cadman, Wieeiam HeaeEy, The East Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. 
Cadoux, T., The Sources of the Second Gospel. 

Creed, John Martin, The Gospel according to St. Euke. 

Crum, J. M. C., The Original Jerusalem Gospel. 

Daeman, GustaE, Orte und Wege Jesu. 

Daeman, GustaE, The Words of Jesus—English translation. 

Easton, Barton Scott, The Gospel According to St. Euke. 

EiseER, Robert, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist. 

Foakes-Jackson and Eake, The Beginnings of Christianity. 

GoguEE, Maurice, Jesus the Nazarene, Myth or History. 

GoodspEEd, Edgar J., The New Testament in an American Translation. 
Hareow, Victor E., Jesus the Man. 

Harnack, A., Euke the Physician. 

Harnack, A., Sayings of Jesus. 

Harris, RendEE, A Study of Codex Bezae. 

HansELE, Edward H., Novum Testamentum Graece. 

Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament. 

Keim, Theodor, Jesus of Nazara, translation by Ransom. 

KeausnER, Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth. English Edition, translation by 
Herbert Danby. 

Eake, Kirsopp, Landmarks of Early Christianity. 

Eake, Kirsopp, The Sinaitic Manuscript of the New Testament. 

Eoisy, AlerEd, E’Evangile selon Euc. 

Eoisy, AeerEd, Ees Evangiles Synoptiques. 

McNEiEE, A. H., Introduction to the New Testament. 

Meyer, Edward, Ursprung und Anfange des Christentums. 

MoEEaTT, James, A New Translation of the Holy Bible. 

Mommsen, Theodor, The Provinces of the Roman Empire. 

MonteeiorE, Claude, The Synoptic Gospels. 

Nestle, EbERHard, Introduction to New Testament Criticism. 

PaTon, Eouis BayeES, Jerusalem in Bible Times. 

( 113 ) 


114 


Biliography 


Pusey and Gwilliam, Tetra-Evangelium Sanctum. 

Sanday, William, Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem. 

Sanday, William, Sacred Sites of the Gospels. 

Sanders, Henry A., The Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels. 
SchuERER, Emil, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus 
Christ. English Edition, translation by John McPherson. 

Schweitzer, Albert, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God. 

Scrivener, Frederick H. A., Introduction to the Criticism of the New 
Testament. 

Simkhovitch, Vladimir G., Toward the Understanding of Jesus. 
Smith, George Adam, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. 
Streeter, Burnett Hillman, The Four Gospels. 

SwETE, H. B., The Gospel according to Mark. 

Talmud, Babylonian, Rodkinson translation. 

TischEndore, Constantinus, Novum Testamentum Graece. 

TrEGELLES, S. P., The Greek New Testament. 

Turner, J. A., The Study of the New Testament. 

Von Soden, Hermann, Griechisches Neues Testament. 

Weiss, Bernard, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament. 
Wellhausen, J., Das Evangelium Marci. 

Wellhausen, J., Einleitung in die drei Ersten Evangelien. 

Westcott & Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original 
Greek. 

WrEdE, W., Das Messiasgeheimnis. 


INDEX 


TO NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 




Matthew 

26. 

3. 

14 

_ _92 


4. 

10 

_ __ _ 29, 31, 32, 33 

27. 


19 —. 

_32 


5. 

24 

_ __ 29 



39 

_69 

1. 

6. 

13 —. 

_ _ 69 


26 

_92 


8. 

22 __ 

_11, 33 


10. 

29 

_ 92 

3. 

11. 

12 __ . 

_68 

4. 

12. 

26 _ 

__31 

6. 


27 —. 

_ _31 

8. 

16. 

13-16 

_ __ — vii 



13-20 . 

_10 



21 

_ 10 



23 

_ _28, 31 



24 

_21 


17. 

22-23 . 

_ _ 11 



22 

_ _38ff 

9. 

18. 

15 —. 

_ _ __ _ 29 


19. 

1-2 

_12 



1-12 

_ 80 

10. 


21 

_ _29 



27-28 . 

_ . 3 


20. 

20 

_ 4 



20-22 . 

_71 



20-23 

_ vii 


21. 

8-9 - 

_ _ _vii 

11. 


14-17 . 

__ 15 



28-46 . 

_16 


22. 

1-2 

_ 16 


23. 

1-7 

_18 



13 — 

__ _68 



13-36 

_18 



37-39 . 

_ __19 



63-64 _vii 

73 -55 


11 

38 


. vii 
102 


Mark 


17-28, 33 

17-18 _27 

20 _33 

27 -57 

23 -31 

10 _29 

23 _29 

27-29 _vii 

32-38 _10 

32-33 _32 

33 -28, 31, 32 

34 -27, 32, 33 

34- 38 _21 

35- 38 _ 64 

1__10, 21 

30 _11 

32-33 _ 11 

1-12 _80 

17-25 _13 

21 _29 

24 -57 

32 _56ff 

32-44 _13 

1-10 __■_15 

9 _60 

9-10 -vii 

11 _ 15 

12 _ 15 

16 _ 3 

17-18 _15 

19 _16 

29-33 _16 


(115) 









































































Index 


116 


12. 28-37 _17 

14. 28 _60 

33 _60 

61-62 _-_vii 

15. 2-3 _vii 

27 _101 

16. 7 _60 

Luke 

5. 5 _36 

6. 3 _98 

8. 24 _36 

42 _29 

45 _36 

9. 18-20 _vii 

23 _10-21 

23-27 _35 

31 _35 

33 _36 

49 _36 

51-53 _55 

51-56 _11 

57-59 _11, 33 

61-62_11, 34 

10. 1_3, 10 

12. 1 _12 

4-5_12, 64 

6-7 _94 

32 _12, 64 

49-52 _ 12 

13. 22-34 _12 

31 _79 

32-33 _ 81 

14. 25-33 _12 

16. 21 _95 

17. 11_55, 79 

13 _16 

18. 35-39 _vii 

19. 1-9 _14 

11 - - -vii 

11-28 ___14 

25-29 _ 13 

41-44 _19 

48 -16 


20. 17 _13 

26 _17 

22. 3 _31 

35-38 _ 71 

23. 1-4 _ 81 

1-25 _75ff 

3 _vii 

8 _80 

12_83 

13- 16_77, 99 

14 _81 

14- 16 _87 

39 _lOlff 

39-43 _103 

40 _98 

55 _ 4 

24. 13-35 _ 4 

19-21 _71 

21 __vii 

21-22 _95 

John 

6. 66 _32-33 

18. 6 _32-33 

20. 14 _ 32-33 

Acts 

1. 15_2, 55 

21-23_4, 55 

2. 7 _55 

9. 6 _57 

13. 1 _83 

19. 2 _93 

40 _41 

21. 8 _37 

22. 32 __84 

25. 21 _85 

28. 3 _41 

I Corinthians 

3. 2 _96 

4. 1 _97 

3_:_96, 97 

















































































Index 


117 


II Corinthians 


7. 11 _98 

11. 1 _98 

12. 7 _31 

PhIIvTIPPIANS 

1. 8 _98 

3. 8 _98 


II PETER 

1. 15 _ 35 

Revelation 

3. 1 _92 

10. 8 _29 




































« 
























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